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madmaddoxfuryroad · 3 years ago

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HSMTMTS: Season 3 thoughts

So I’ve been ruminating a lot about this show today (like every other day) and I got to thinking about what they might do for season 3. Less so plot-wise (I mean season 2 is just over halfway through), but more about what musical they might do, what the cast might be, and how that could tie into the individual characters and their arcs (some more so than others, but c’est la vie).

In trying to figure out what musical they might do, I started first with the obvious: what does Disney own? I don’t think they would return to the HSM franchise (until the final season, but thoughts on that for another day), so anything related to that and other DCOMs I counted out. I also eliminated all Disney animated/princess films. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but seeing as this season they are doing BATB, I don’t think they would immediately go into another animated-film-adapted-for-broadway right after that. So at that point I wasn’t quite sure where to go. Mary Poppins was really the only other thing that came to mind and while I love the film and broadway show I just don’t think it fits the cast well slash even has enough parts to really showcase them. You have Mary and Bert. And then I guess Mr. and Mrs. Banks? Then the kids are a whole other issue. It just felt messy. So I just started thinking about broadway shows that I like, I mean if they wanted to, Disney has the money and could pay for the rights to use most shows. Then everything fell into place.

Into the Woods. I am 100% positive I am letting my bias for this show cloud my judgement, but if you stick with me, I think I can persuade you (or not, your mind is your own and I respect that). First off, Disney owns it. At least I think they do. They made the movie (RIP), so I am going to safely assume they have the rights at this point. Next, yes it contains fairytale elements, which might make you feel it’s a little too close to BATB, but it is such a deconstruction of fairytales and their tropes that I almost feel like it is an amazing follow up to a more traditional fairytale. It introduces conflict and the real world into these fantasy scenarios, which I feel goes really well with high school in general and growing up, expectations being shattered, and learning to alter your world view (I really love this play). Plus, I think it would be exciting to see this cast do a more broadway-type show. Obviously BATB is a broadway show, but I think there is a lot of reliance on knowing the film and less on the play itself. And not going to lie after Julia Lester’s rendition of “Home” last week (which I have not STOPPED listening to) it would be amazing to hear these teens tackle more broadway-style music. Which, takes me to my final point: the cast. What I love so much about Into the Woods is how it is very much an ensemble cast. Yes some roles are bigger than others, but if you have a named character, odds are it’s a fairly good role. And the whole HSMTMTS cast is so talented, I like the idea of them picking a show where it does not feel like anyone is sidelined with their part. Now the only thing left to do is cast it…

FULL disclosure. I ran into an issue early on that I ended up thinking Ashlyn was perfect for every female role and Seb was perfect for every male role. But I was eventually able to push through and cast it (in my humble opinion) pretty well. So I am just going to go off in the order that I cast them, because I think it will help explain my thought process.

THE CAST

Cinderella - Nini. Once I got over my need to hear Julia/Ashlyn sing “No One Is Alone” (loophole to this coming later), this felt like a pretty natural fit and was one of the easiest to cast. For one, I just think Olivia’s vocal range pairs very well with Cinderella’s and she could do beautifully with her songs like “On the Steps Of The Palace”. But what really got me was the way she parallels the character so perfectly. Cinderella is a character who always dreams of more but isn’t quite sure what that “more” is. And because she isn’t *quite* sure what she wants, the character is often seen grappling with indecision (see: “On The Steps Of The Palace”). Most of Act I is her being stagnant and letting the Prince take the active role. Finally in Act II she starts to get a better sense of who she is, who she wants to be, and what she doesn’t want. So this felt like it tied in really nicely with Nini’s journey and would be a great role for her, especially when…

Cinderella’s Prince - Ricky. Yes, yes I know. Ricky and Nini playing love interests? Groundbreaking. But stay with me. For one, I just like the idea of Ricky not getting the lead male role, and this part is perfect for him, regardless. The whole relationship between Cinderella and her Prince mirrors Nini and Ricky remarkably well. The way the Prince sees Cinderella as this perfect maiden who, if he could just be with her, would be the only thing he would ever want/need. But of course this isn’t realistic and isn’t how relationships work, which they both come to terms with by the end of Act II. Their break-up/parting ways scene might be my favorite in the entire play and I think it would be so great for Ricky and Nini to get to perform. In part because the conclusion of the scene is basically them both admitting that they will always love the idea of the other, even though they don’t actually work as a couple. (**I am operating on the assumption that they will have broken up in season 2 and are still broken up, but never really dealt with it). Honestly I recommend just watching the scene I will link it here (it goes from about 2:12:35-2:15:00). Plus, I could totally see there being an episode where they are trying to rehearse this scene, but it just isn’t working so Miss Jenn has both of them improv it or rewrite the lines to something that might feel more comfortable or personal. And I just see that being a really beautiful moment for the two and a chance for growth and closure. I could go on about this dynamic, but I will move on to my final point: “Agony”. First, while it is mostly a comedic song, you can take just the first verse of the song and recontextualize it really nicely as a Ricky pining kind of song, which I absolutely dig (not quitting on my Rina endgame, and you can’t make me) I mean: “If I should lose her, how shall I regain the heart she has won from me? Agony, beyond power of speech, when the one thing you want is the only thing out of your reach”. And BONUS I think we could also get a full-on version of “Agony” in all its absurdist glory with…

Rapunzel’s Prince - EJ. Well, sort of. Technically, no. BUT for the purposes of “Agony”, yes. At this point EJ will have graduated, but I don’t think he will be written out of the show, so it remains to be seen exactly what his place will be. I just think these two 100% need a song together and this is 100% that song. I could see it being something as simple as EJ is helping out with the show, the unnamed kid playing Rapunzel’s Prince is out, so they have EJ fill in. Or they have to have him go on for that kid last minute during the performance. It’s a quick, easily explainable thing that would have SUCH a great payoff.

Jack - Big Red. This was certainly one of the easier ones to cast, but my first thought was of course Seb. Jack is just a boy whose best friend is his cow and Seb radiates that energy. But I needed him for something else. Enter Big Red, the perfect Jack. For one, Big Red has a lot of that starry eyed wonderment that Jack has, that none of the other characters do. There is a purity and innocence to the way Jack sees a lot of things. That pairs nicely with Big Red. And it also opens the door for him to grow and mature more as a character. By the end of the show, Jack is in a place where is needs to transition more to adulthood and with Big Red being a senior by season 3, I think there is a lot of potential here. Also, with Big Red as Jack, I really like the character he is often paired with in scenes, but I will hold back until I get to them.

Witch - Kourtney. Yes. It is her time. One can debate over which character is the “main character” of Into the Woods, but for me it’s the Witch. And Kourtney deserves this. Did I heavily consider Ashlyn for this as well? You know I did. But I grow more and more confident in the casting of Kourtney the more I think about it. First thing’s first: the Witch belts, and I mean BELTS. Dara is such a powerhouse vocally that she would crush every moment of that; I have total faith. But the Witch also has such quiet and tender moments that people don’t think about as much, but are so necessary for the character to be effective and I think she also has that on lock. We have not seen a ton of it (so I would be eager to get more) but when she did her version of “Beauty and the Beast” she was able to find soft but strong moments in the song, and it was so lovely. Then, from a more thematic POV, the Witch is characterized as “the voice of reason”. While everyone else is running around in their fairytale dream world, she is always the one there dolling out the reality checks. And if that ain’t Kourtney. Basically, I think it is her time to get the lead and she would be amazing in this role.

Baker - Seb. Finally settled on a role for him. But really, how could it be anything else? I have felt since the first time we heard him sing (in Truth, Justice, and Songs in our Key, I think) that he was severely underused. The Baker is essentially the male lead, and he has earned it. I don’t think there’s much more that needs to be said here.

Baker’s Wife - Ashlyn. Here’s the thing: could someone else be cast as Baker’s Wife? Yes. And I am sure they would do a fine job. But the thing about this role is that you often don’t realize how fantastic it is until you see someone really great playing it. There’s heart, humor, tragedy, and so much more all wrapped into this character and I would far and away trust Julia/Ashlyn with this above all others. And Baker’s Wife gets to sing a short reprise of “No One Is Alone” so I get to win both ways. No matter how I try to cast it or rearrange characters, I keep coming back to the fact that Ashlyn is just hands down the correct choice. Plus she is one of the better options when it comes to having chemistry with Seb. And I’m not even talking about romantic chemistry, just more about the camaraderie of it, and being able to really see them as a team worth rooting for. They both have an inherent sweetness that makes you care for them, which is crucial for the show. AND this would be another opportunity for Julia Lester to flex her acting after playing VERY different roles in HSM and BATB. Basically, I don’t know when it happened, but I think I am a Julia Lester stan and I only want what is best for her and I think this is it.

Little Red - Gina. “Didn’t see that one coming did you?” -Pietro Maximoff. And honestly same. There’s always that tough moment in casting when you’ve done the more obvious ones and then you feel sort of stuck with cast choices that weren’t really your choice. But this one really grew on me. Hopefully, I can do it justice. And I will be the first to admit Gina deserves her time to shine because I do think she is amazing. It just isn’t her time yet. It also doesn’t help that Into the Woods is one of the LEAST dance-centered shows and dance it where she really puts all others to shame. So this is where we landed. But it works. I promise. Little Red as a character is pretty naïve, but covers it up with over the top confidence. That feels pretty Gina. I love where her character has gone and all the growth she is displayed in trying to be more vulnerable. But there is still a part of me that does miss mean girl Gina and I think Little Red is a great way to get that energy without backtracking the character development. I don’t think she would be the stereotypical “bratty” Little Red, but I think she could still do something great with it. Also very similar to Jack, Little Red is one of the more innocent characters that has to grow up and face a lot of harsh realities over the course of the play. And I have no doubt Gina would nail that aspect of it, too. And speaking of Jack, Little Red has a number of scenes interacting with him and you know what that means: Gina and Big Red bonding time! I really like the idea of these roles bringing the two closer as friends. And I already head-canon that they would have a ton of fun playing with the fact that they are now Big Red and Little Red (especially since he is on the shorter side and she is on the taller side). Basically I see this as a way for them to build up a really good rapport. I am also pretty convinced that Big Red is a secret Rina shipper, and this would only add to that. And finally even though this is not a dance-heavy show at all, one place where they could add a dance is during “Hello Little Girl”. Now I will be the first to admit that this song is dicey at best, particularly for Disney. But even a scene working on the dance with just the instrumental, no lyrics, could be great. I see it as a partner dance with the wolf (I don’t know dance terms, so maybe this is super vague). And oh, wouldn’t you know it? Cinderella’s Prince is often double-cast as the wolf! (WHAT ARE THE CHANCES) Meaning the Wolf would also be good ol’ Richard Bowen. And I like the idea of getting Rina scenes of them trying to work on the dance, but Ricky is super bad a leading, and they just have fun trying to figure it out. It’s also nice that it is absolutely not a romantic dance so the two wouldn’t feel any added pressure and could just have fun with one another, and that really is when Rina is at its best (not that I would say no to a scene where Gina has to teach Ricky the BATB waltz, but I digress).

Narrator/Mysterious Man - Carlos. By process of elimination, you probably could have guessed who was next. And I know this one also feels like a weird choice but I do kind of love it. First you have the narrator, which is another one of those roles that is only as memorable as the actor playing it, which I think is right up Carlos’ alley. He is always trying to put his unique stamp on things and be memorable and he would take the narrator in a very enjoyable direction. There’s also the matter that I see Carlos as something of an assistant director with Miss Jenn, which makes him a third-party observer of the shows inherently, so it is almost a little meta that he would also end up being the narrator. Then there’s is the mysterious man. I love the idea of Carlos getting to play two very different characters, but I love it even more because the mysterious man is the father of the baker which makes for a lot of sweet moments between the two of them. Yes it might be a little weird for Seblos to be playing father and son, but there is such a vulnerability and tenderness in the moments between the two characters, particularly during “No More” that I can get over it. Because I think they are one of the few pairings on this show that could really pull that off. I just think this character would be a great way to exhibit the range of Carlos.

**BONUS ALTERNATE CASTING**

I really, really love this idea and could not fault them if this was the direction they went, but I ultimately decided against it, mostly because I felt too strongly about another character having the role BUT:

Baker’s Husband - Carlos. I just really love the idea of Seblos getting to be front and center, with their dynamic as the focal point of the show. And honestly Carlos would also do an amazing job as this character. I mean, Seb and Carlos singing “It Takes Two”? How sweet is that? This would also be a great way for the development of their relationship to get a little bit more attention, instead of a side story here and there. There is a lot that could be done with this from a story perspective and I would be here for it.

Unfortunately, then that leaves me unsure of where to put Ashlyn. She could be Jack’s mother, but that feels like such a waste of her. I mean, she would do well and she does have the lead this year, so it’s not SO terrible her having a more minor character, but it just doesn’t feel right. And I really just feel so strongly that she would be the best option for Baker’s Wife out of everyone. And it opens the door to develop the Seb and Ashlyn friendship more, which I am always here for.

Anyway. Those are my thoughts. If you made it this far: wow and thank you!

#hsmtmts #rina #hsmtmts season 3

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peachybowen · 5 years ago

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stupid • r.b

series masterlist

pt.1 pt.2

pairing: ricky bowen x reader

warnings: none

songs: Falling For U by Peachy! and mxmtoon, Wondering by Julia Lester and Olivia Rodrigo

words: 3.6k

AND ALSO I’M HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT I HAVE A MASTERLIST 🤪 YOU CAN SEE WHAT I’M WORKING ON AND YEAHHH

A/N: feedback is always appreciated 🥺 I’m sorry if you find any grammar mistakes. Enjoy xx

I have dreamed of playing the lead since 5th grade. Of course I didn't tell anyone besides my brother and Cousin. When I got home last night, my brother and I talked. He was happy for me. Ej also said that he was really proud of me but he also added that he thinks that Nini deserved better.

,,Yo, what's up? I'm trading in my East High Leopards gear to be a Wildcat, starting today, because it's the day of the read-through! Blessed to be playing Chad. Swipe up for a link to tickets.'' EJ said holding his phone up, smiling the whole time.

,,Hi!'' Ash and I exclaimed simultaneously, walking up to EJ.

,,Say hi to my cousin and my little sister and bye to my cousin and sister.'' he turned his phone off and put it in his jeans pocket.

,,You're in a good mood.'' I mentioned and continued walking beside him, with Ash on his other side.

,,That's just for the fans, Y/N. Inside I'm a bucket of sad.'' he stated and I looked at Ash and then at him.

,,You still not over the not-getting Troy thing?'' Ash asked.

,,I put 3 years into this drama department and now I have to understudy my girlfriend's ex?'' he turned to me.

,,No offense Y/N.” he added and I just laughed and waved it off.

,,I know it sucks. But, I mean; Y/N is Gabriella and I don't think we would want an incest couple in our play, you know.'' Ash explained and I cringed at the thought.

,,Ash is 100% right.'' I agreed and started walking faster, Ash right behind me.

When we arrived at the rehearsal room, I saw Ej putting the Chad Danford card next to the Gabriella one. Ricky and I didn't talk much since the auditions and maybe, just maybe, that was my fault. I have been avoiding him, which was actually pretty hard considering I had almost all my classes with him. He tried to talk to me here and there but I just hummed in response most of the time. Honestly I was just trying to get over my crush on him. He still wasn't over Nini and he actually wanted to take part in the musical for her and I kinda ruined his chances because she did not get the lead. I also didn't want to ruin our friendship. We were friends since kindergarten and I wanted to keep him as a friend. After the auditions, Ash came over. She actually told me not to avoid Ricky but I just thought it was a good idea. Of course Ej agreed with me.

,,Could everyone take their assigned seats?'' Ms.Jenn asked loud enough for everone to hear. I walked to my seat and noticed that Ej put the cards back to how they were. I sat down with a sigh. Soon after Miss Jenn actually asked Big Red to read the stage directions because Natalie, the stage director, wasn't there. And like 5 seconds after that Ricky took the seat next to me. I looked at Ash, who was sitting across from me. She smiled and turned her attention to the blonde drama teacher.

,,I realize that you all walked in here as strangers.'' she started looking at us.

,,Actually, I'm Y/N and EJ’s, cousin!'' Ashlyn corrected. I could see Ricky looking at me out of the corner of my eye but I just ignored him.

,,But after today, you're a family. Please take your neighbors' hand.'' she finished and everyone did what the teacher said. I took Gina's hand and turned my head to Ricky, who was holding his hand out for me. I took his hand but avoided eye contact.

,,Hand.'' Ms.Jenn said as soon as she saw that Ej and Ricky weren't holding hands. Their heads shot in my direction when they heard me giggle. I stopped immediately.

,,Feel each other's energy. Let the silence speak volumes. In a world full of no, this is a space full of yes.'' the drama teacher preached.

,,Nice. Did you just come up with that?'' Carlos whispered to the middle-aged woman.

,,I did.'' she replied, smiling at him. It was silent. Nobody said anything and I could feel Ricky staring again and I just turned my head to Gina and smiled at her. Seconds later Ms.Jenn started singing ''We're all in this together.''. I let go of Ricky and Gina's hand and looked at the script on my table, highlighting my lines. Ash started to clap after Ms.Jenn finished singing. Nobody clapped beside her so she stopped and everyone looked at her.

,,"Sharpay heads for class, hears singing," "opens the door to the biology lab." "She finds Gabriella and Taylor washing their hands." "They turn to find there are no paper towels in the dispenser. They-'''' Big Red was disrupted by Miss Jenn before he could continue reading.

,,Try to read the punctuation.'' she instructed and smiled at the redhead.

,,"Sharpay comma heads for class period.'''' he said and I grinned. He was so oblivious sometimes it was cute.

We took a break after reading act one. I was talking to Ash but I also kinda watched my brother and Nini talking. And, yes, Ricky looked at them too. Nini got a text, she laughed, and Ricky was on his phone so it was kinda obvious that he sent her a meme or something like that. Ej glared at him and sat down again.

,,Cool glasses.'' I turned my head to see Seb taking a seat next to Ashlyn. She smiled.

,,Thanks. They're my grandmas.'' she acknowledged.

,,I have the same ones at home.'' he laughed.

,,Really? Why?'' I asked, trying to join the conversation again.

,,So, I can see when I'm milking.'' he replied and I was confused.

Milking?

Before I had the chance to ask what he meant by that, Miss Jenn said that we were gonna continue.

I was on stage waiting for Ricky. Ms.Jenn wanted us to start rehearsing early and I wasn't really thrilled. When he came running in, he said that he was sorry for being late.

,,We're diving into page 97.'' Ms.Jenn directed and handed us the script.

,,You mean the last scene?'' Ricky asked just as confused as I was. The teacher just hummed in response.

,,You wanna rehearse this? It's just one line.'' I also asked.

,,Yeah, I've got one, too.'' Ricky stated turning to me.

,,And then there's the kiss.'' Ms.Jenn exclaimed. I looked at her and started to panic.

,,There was no-. I don't remember a kiss in what we read yesterday.'' I stuttered trying to reason with her.

,,It was very much in the original movie.''

,,I only remember a hug.'' I augmented further. I wasn't really in the mood to kiss my best friend. It would just make things more awkward between us.

,,The kiss ended up being cut. Little racy for its time.'' she explained looking at me with a smile.

Later that day I sat in Miss Jenn's office, explaining to her that I just couldn't kiss Ricky.

°Ej's POV°

I was standing outside Ms.Jenn's office, waiting for Y/N when Ashlyn walked up to me.

,,Hi!'' she greeted cheerfully.

,,Go away.'' I simply said.

,,No, you go away. You're standing in front of my locker.''

I stepped away and she opened the locker.

,,I can't believe this. She's around Ricky's finger.''

,,Who?'' Ash asked and looked at me.

,,Miss Jenn! She added a kiss.'' I explained and Ashlyn rolled her eyes.

,,Ej, stop. He's not bribing our director.'' she interrupted.

,,Y/N doesn't want to kiss him, Ash. And I don't want that either.''

,,Being her big brother doesn't mean you own her.'' she commented. I rolled my eyes and changed the subject.

,,I need you to do me a favor.''

,,What kind of favor?'' she asked with a raised brow.

,,I need you to borrow Nini's phone.'' I explained and she looked at me like I was crazy.

,,Borrow? As in steal?''

I just nodded. I needed to be 100% sure that Ricky wasn't in the way of my relationship. Nini was different. She wasn't like other girls. The girl helped me be a better person.

,,Okay, you've just gone up 3 levels of scary!'' the girl stressed, shocked by my words. She tried to reason with me for a bit but then she left, leaving me standing alone in front of the office, waiting for my sister.

°Y/N’s pov°

,,I'm kinda lost. If the play is over, why would we still be dancing?'' Ricky asked beside me. We were back in the rehearsing room. Just as I was about to answer, Carlos came up from behind us.

,,It's a certain call. You're the last two to come out. We want to bring the audience to their feet!'' he explained snickering.

,,Teach them the dance.'' Ricky joked.

,,Carlos? Can we wait for Miss Jenn?'' I pleaded kinda just wanting the director there.

,,Miss Jenn is busy tracking down a prop. She's asked me to create a crescendo, people, so let's stop swirling and let's start twirling.'' Carlos directed calmly.

,,But why are we practicing the bows when we haven't even practiced the play?'' Ricky asked still confused.

,,Because you start with the hardest dance that takes the longest to learn. It's in the Big Book of Broadway.'' Carlos started. Gina came up behind him.

,,Page 374.'' they both finished at the same time. Gina walked away after they both high-fived each other.

Shortly after we started practicing the dance. Ricky was terrible. I mean he tried but he did not succeed. Kinda embarrassing.

,,What is he doing?'' Nini asked from the side as soon as the music stopped. I turned to look at her. She stepped forward and looked at Carlos.

,,Why you're talking to him? I'm right here.''

And that was when I took a step back. I wasn't in the mood to be in the middle of Nini and Ricky drama. I had enough of that over the summer.

,,'Cause you're not here. Not for the right reasons.'' Nini snapped.

,,What's that supposed to mean?'' Ricky asked standing right in front of her. Everyone was silent. Nobody wanted to interrupt that conversation.

,,What I said, Ricky. You hate musicals. You're doing this so we're in each other's grills.''

Carlos took a step forward to break the two apart but they kept on going.

,,Now you're rubbing some weird cologne on your neck.''

,,Hey, you love Throb!''

,,And wasting everybody's time by making fun of something that the rest of us take seriously.'' the brown-haired girl ranted. After the words left her mouth, Carlos told everyone to take a five-minute break and to get out. I stayed just being moral support for Carlos and Ricky. He and Nini argued for a few more seconds, my brother's name was mentioned and Ricky left. Just as Miss Jenn came back, Ricky walked through the door.

,,We're you going Troy?'' she asked, confused as to why he was leaving in the middle of rehearsals.

,,It's Ricky.'' he mumbled before exiting the room. I sighed, looked at Nini, who looked at her hands, grabbed my things and went after him.

,,Why are my leads leaving?'' Miss Jenn asked again.

Ricky was way faster than me.

I mean have you seen him? He's way taller than me!

However, when I saw Big Red outside talking to him, I decided to let them talk. My mind just told me to leave him alone to cool off, you know? So I decided to talk to Nini instead. On the way back, Carlos asked me where Ricky went and I told him that he went outside. Not so sure if that was a good idea because it would just put more pressure on Ricky. When I arrived at the rehearsal room again, Miss Jenn was talking to Nini and she still stood by the piano, looking at her hands.

,,Nini can I talk to you for a second?'' I asked and walked in her direction. Miss Jenn turned to look at me and left the room without another word. I think she knew that it was better to let teenagers sort their problems out alone sometimes.

,,I really don't want to talk to you right now. Ricky probably send you and I'm really not in the mood to-''

,,Ricky did not 'send' me. I'm here because I chose to talk to you. I know that you probably don't even want that because I basically stole the role you wanted to play but listen. Miss Jenn is working really hard on this musical and so is everyone else and I know it's hard being in a musical with your ex- and current boyfriend but please, for the sake of this musical, get along with Ricky.''

,,Y/N you don't even understand the situation. You never had an ex before!''

,,That may be true but I'm not on good terms with Ricky either! Do you see me causing a scene? No! So please Nini, at least consider, not ripping Ricky's face off.'' and with that, I left.

The first thing I did when I arrived at home was eat. I always ate when I was frustrated. Not my best habit. While waiting for my pizza to be done, I decided to post something on Instagram

y/ncaswell

Salt Lake City, Utah

liked by ejcaswell, dancingcarlos and 67 more

y/ncaswell you're looking at your Gabriella Montez baby 🤪

view all 23 comments

dancingcarlos and that's on actually auditioning for Taylor

yourgirlash u rocked that audition tho! So proud of u :))

I smiled at all the supporting comments and began eating my pizza, which I got out of the oven without burning my hands.

what? I'm proud of me. I always burn my hands while getting the pizza out of the oven. That's why Ej is normally doing it when... I want pizza.

After eating half of the pizza, leaving the other half for Ej, I went upstairs. I threw my bag into a corner and threw myself on bed. I sighed and grabbed my ukulele. The next thing I knew was that I started playing some chords that popped into my head.

I was hangin' with you and then I realized

I didn't think it was true, I was surprised

When I found out I've fallen for you

I didn't wanna believe my feelings for you

I didn't wanna believe that I could lose you

If I told you just how I felt

But I can't help it

I'm falling for you

And I can't quit it

'Cause I'm stuck on you

And it might be pathetic and you might be skeptical

But I just want to be with you

Please tell me, boy

Can you get a clue?

Or come through 'cause I just want to be with you

,,The song is for him right?''

I gasped in surprise and turned my head to the door to see EJ leaning against my door frame, eating the pizza I left for him.

,,When did you come home?'' I asked while placing the ukulele on the floor. He walked towards me and sat on the edge of my mattress.

,,5 minutes ago but stop trying to change the subject. The song is for Ricky right?''

I just nodded, looking at my hands.

,,It's cute.''

,,What?'' I asked and looked up.

,,The song. It's cute. I mean I don't really support the idea of you and him together, you know that but I like the song.''

,,Thank you and don't worry EJ, him and me? That won't happen. He's still in love with Nini.'' I responded with a sad smile.

,,I know this may sound really awful but maybe it's just not meant to be.''

Maybe he was right. Maybe the universe wanted to show me that it just wasn't meant to be. That I was chasing a dream. Ricky was so in love with Nini and to be honest I wasn't surprised. Nini was such a sweet and gorgeous girl, always have been. It's so easy to fall in love with her. No wonder my brother did.

I nodded and the only word that left my mouth was:,,Maybe.''

EJ flashed me a smile, patted my shoulder and left the bedroom. I sighed and my head hit the pillow.

The next day was pretty much uneventful.

Ok maybe that's a lie. I did catch Nini spying on Carlos and Ricky in the library. That's a good thing right?

When I opened the door to the auditorium, everything was silent. But as soon as the door closed and I leaned my back on the wall, someone started playing the piano. The curiosity got the best of me and I walked up the stage to see who was playing the wonderful melody. I was quite surprised to discover Ashlyn sitting in front of the piano, pressing the keys softly.

,,Oh hi.'' was the first thing she said when she noticed my presence.

,,Hi. I didn't know anyone was in here.'' I answered looking at my cousin, who took her hands off the piano keys.

,,I can be gone in like 7 seconds. Six if I don't zip my bag.'' She replied as she started to throw her things into her bag.

,,No, Ash. Don't go. What was that?''

,,What was what?'' she asked and stopped packing her things.

,,The song you were just playing.''

,,Oh that. Miss Jenn asked me to compose a song for my character. It's probably way too much.'' she explained and grabbed the notes out of her bag again. I just nodded and listen to her ramble. I didn't really know why she was so nervous.

,,Why don't you play me some more of your song?'' I asked and sat down beside her. Ashlyn nodded and started playing the same melody I heard when the door closed.

,,Seems like a part of me will always have to lose.'' She began, her eyes watching her fingers which were pressing down the piano keys.

,,Every single time I have to choose

Swore that it felt right, but was I wrong?

Is this where I'm supposed to be at all?

I don't have the answers, not today

It's like nothing makes the questions go away

What I'd give to see If the grass was greener

On the other side

Of all I've had and lost

Would it be enough

Or would I still be wondering?'' she sang, her eyes still trained on the piano.

,,If I could go back and change the past

Be a little braver than I had

And bet against the odds

Would I still be lost?

Even if I woke up in my dreams

Would there still be something I'm missing?

If I had everything Would it mean anything?''

I looked at her in awe. I never really heard Ashlyn sing like that before and she had so much talent. She turned her gaze to me for a second, implying to sing with her. I smiled and turned my attention to the little sheet of paper in front of me.

,,Maybe I should turn around and take the other road

Or maybe I'm just looking for what I already know.'' we sang together, smiling after realizing that we hit every note in perfect harmony.

,,I'm just wondering...

It feels like I might have broke the best thing that I had.'' I sang alone and at that exact moment, Ricky slowly walked in. We didn't notice though. We were to caught up in our own little moment.

,,I said too much to ever take it back

I'm scared I'll never find something as good

And would I even know it if I could?'' I vocalized the verse Ashlyn wrote so flawlessly.

,,If I could go back and change the past

Be a little braver than I had

And bet against the odds

Would I still be lost?

Even if I woke up in my dreams

Would there still be something I'm missing

If I had everything

Would it mean anything.'' we both sang again.

,,To me?'' I finished and smiled. My smile fell as soon as I saw Ricky standing in the room.

,,Uh...We're back.'' he stuttered and looked at us with semi-wide eyes.

,,What?'' I asked quietly.

,,Downstairs.'' the curly-haired boy answered and shook his head slightly which made his curls bounce a little.

,,Miss Jenn wants to see everyone in the bomb shelter.'' he finished and left without saying another word. I looked at Ashlyn and she just shrugged before she got up and packed her things. Me being the incredible cousin I am, I waited for her.

When we arrived downstairs the whole theater group was building a small circle around the blonde drama teacher who had a huge carton in front of her.

,,Here it is, people.'' Miss Jenn breathed out, holding a small device in her hands.

,,Is that a garage-door opener?'' Seb asked as he looked at the small object in front of him.

,,No, Seb. This is Gabriella's Phone. From the film.''

A few students gasped.

,,I plan on creating a time-capsule display in our lobby. If they can have 40 sports-ball trophies, we deserve a little movie museum.'' the teacher explained, holding up the phone so everyone could see.

,,Okay, people, enough dazzle. Fetch your scripts please. Places for the top of the ski lodge!''

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

Text

Billie Holiday

Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond, who commended her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems.

She was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall. Due to personal struggles and an altered voice, her final recordings were met with mixed reaction, but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis on July 17, 1959.

She won four Grammy Awards, all of them posthumously, for Best Historical Album. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973. Lady Sings the Blues, a film about her life, starring Diana Ross, was released in 1972. She is the primary character in the play (later made into a film) Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill; the role was originated by Reenie Upchurch in 1986, and was played by Audra McDonald on Broadway and in the film. In 2017 Holiday was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

Life and career

1915–29: Childhood

Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of unwed teenage couple Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Sarah moved to Philadelphia aged 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist.

She grew up in Baltimore and had a very difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as "transportation jobs," serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being in others' care for her first decade of life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer.

Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists her father as "Frank DeViese." Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years.

Eleanora was left with Martha Miller again while her mother took more transportation jobs. She frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school, where she was baptized on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother. She had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, and mother and daughter worked long hours there. She dropped out of school at age 11.

On December 24, 1926, Sadie came home to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Eleanora. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Eleanora in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, when she was nearly twelve. She found a job running errands in a brothel, and she scrubbed marble steps and kitchen and bathroom floors of neighborhood homes. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, again leaving Eleanora with Martha Miller.

By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem. Their landlady was a sharply-dressed woman named Florence Williams, who ran a brothel at 151 West 140th Street. Holiday's mother became a prostitute, and within a matter of days of arriving in New York, Holiday, not yet 14, became a victim of sexual trafficking at $5 a client. The house was raided on May 2, 1929, and Holiday and her mother were sent to prison. After spending time in a workhouse, her mother was released in July, and Holiday was released in October.

1929–35: Early career

As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday," her father's birth surname, but eventually changed it to "Holiday," his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor saxophone player Kenneth Hollan. They were a team from 1929 to 1931, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.

Late in 1932, 17-year-old Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. Producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-in-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch," the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, but "Riffin' the Scotch," released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.

In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's musical short film Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. She sang "Saddest Tale" in her scene.

1935–38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson

In 1935, Holiday was signed to Brunswick by John Hammond to record pop tunes with pianist Teddy Wilson in the swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were allowed to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame". Brunswick did not favor the recording session because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. However, after "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" was successful, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later for Vocalion in sessions produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. Wilson and Holiday took pop tunes such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" and "Yankee Doodle Never Went to Town" and turned them into jazz classics.

Another frequent accompanist was tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a rapport. Young said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices ... or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she called him "Prez".

Hammond said the Wilson-Holiday records from 1935 to 1938 were a great asset to Brunswick. According to Hammond, Brunswick was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without written arrangements, reducing the recording cost. Brunswick paid Holiday a flat fee rather than royalties, which saved the company money. "I Cried for You" sold 15,000 copies, which Hammond called "a giant hit for Brunswick.... Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."

1937–38: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw

In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess the year before. Basie became used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do."

Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while DownBeat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.

Some of the songs Holiday performed with Basie were recorded. "I Can't Get Started", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", and "Swing It Brother Swing" are all commercially available. Holiday was unable to record in the studio with Basie, but she included many of his musicians in her recording sessions with Teddy Wilson.

By February of that year, Holiday was no longer singing for Basie. Various reasons have been given for her firing. Jimmy Rushing, Basie's male vocalist, called her unprofessional. According to All Music Guide, Holiday was fired for being "temperamental and unreliable". She complained of low pay and poor working conditions and may have refused to sing the songs requested of her or change her style.

Holiday was hired by Artie Shaw a month after being fired from the Count Basie Band. This association placed her among the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an unusual arrangement at that time. This was also the first time a black female singer employed full-time toured the segregated U.S. South with a white bandleader. In situations where there was a lot of racial tension, Shaw was known to stick up for his vocalist. In her autobiography, Holiday describes an incident in which she was not permitted to sit on the bandstand with other vocalists because she was black. Shaw said to her, "I want you on the band stand like Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor and everyone else." When touring the South, Holiday would sometimes be heckled by members of the audience. In Louisville, Kentucky, a man called her a "nigger wench" and requested she sing another song. Holiday lost her temper and had to be escorted off the stage.

By March 1938, Shaw and Holiday had been broadcast on New York City's powerful radio station WABC (the original WABC, now WCBS). Because of their success, they were given an extra time slot to broadcast in April, which increased their exposure. The New York Amsterdam News reviewed the broadcasts and reported an improvement in Holiday's performance. Metronome reported that the addition of Holiday to Shaw's band put it in the "top brackets". Holiday could not sing as often during Shaw's shows as she could in Basie's; the repertoire was more instrumental, with fewer vocals. Shaw was also pressured to hire a white singer, Nita Bradley, with whom Holiday did not get along but had to share a bandstand. In May 1938, Shaw won band battles against Tommy Dorsey and Red Norvo with the audience favoring Holiday. Although Shaw admired Holiday's singing in his band, saying she had a "remarkable ear" and a "remarkable sense of time", her tenure with the band was nearing an end.

In November 1938, Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel, instead of the passenger elevator, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen."

There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet on four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".

By the late 1930s, Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Easy Living" were imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards. In 1938, Holiday's single "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart" ranked sixth as the most-played song in September of that year. Her record label, Vocalion, listed the single as its fourth-best seller for the same month, and it peaked at number 2 on the pop charts, according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories: 1890–1954.

1939: "Strange Fruit" and Commodore Records

Holiday was recording for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song based on a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym "Lewis Allan" for the poem, which was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings. It was eventually heard by Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. She performed it at the club in 1939, with some trepidation, fearing possible retaliation. She later said that the imagery of the song reminded her of her father's death and that this played a role in her resistance to performing it.

For her performance of "Strange Fruit" at the Café Society, she had waiters silence the crowd when the song began. During the song's long introduction, the lights dimmed and all movement had to cease. As Holiday began singing, only a small spotlight illuminated her face. On the final note, all lights went out, and when they came back on, Holiday was gone.

Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice, and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South", she wrote in her autobiography.

When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore", Holiday said of "Strange Fruit", "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.

Holiday's popularity increased after "Strange Fruit". She received a mention in Time magazine. "I open Café Society as an unknown," Holiday said. "I left two years later as a star. I needed the prestige and publicity all right, but you can't pay rent with it." She soon demanded a raise from her manager, Joe Glaser.

Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number one hit for Bing Crosby. She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.

1940–47: Commercial success

Holiday's mother Sadie, nicknamed "The Duchess", opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept Mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me", Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some", she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own", and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric, "God Bless the Child", and added music.

"God Bless the Child" became Holiday's most popular and most covered record. It reached number 25 on the charts in 1941 and was third in Billboard's songs of the year, selling over a million records. In 1976, the song was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. Herzog claimed Holiday contributed only a few lines to the lyrics. He said she came up with the line "God bless the child" from a dinner conversation the two had had.

On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day". The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade.

In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."

Milt Gabler, in addition to owning Commodore Records, became an A&R man for Decca Records. He signed Holiday to Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. Her first Decca recording was "Lover Man" (number 16 Pop, number 5 R&B), one of her biggest hits. The success and distribution of the song made Holiday a staple in the pop community, leading to solo concerts, rare for jazz singers in the late 40s. Gabler said, "I made Billie a real pop singer. That was right in her. Billie loved those songs." Jimmy Davis and Roger "Ram" Ramirez, the song's writers, had tried to interest Holiday in the song. In 1943, a flamboyant male torch singer, Willie Dukes, began singing "Lover Man" on 52nd Street. Because of his success, Holiday added it to her shows. The record's flip side was "No More", one of her favorites.

Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him," Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons between her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings.

A month later, in November, Holiday returned to Decca to record "That Ole Devil Called Love", "Big Stuff", and "Don't Explain". She wrote "Don't Explain" after she caught her husband, Jimmy Monroe, with lipstick on his collar.

Holiday did not make any more records until August 1945, when she recorded "Don't Explain" for a second time, changing the lyrics "I know you raise Cain" to "Just say you'll remain" and changing "You mixed with some dame" to "What is there to gain?" Other songs recorded were "Big Stuff", "What Is This Thing Called Love?", and "You Better Go Now". Ella Fitzgerald named "You Better Go Now" her favorite recording of Holiday's. "Big Stuff" and "Don't Explain" were recorded again but with additional strings and a viola.

In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.

In September 1946, Holiday began her only major film, New Orleans, in which she starred opposite Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. Plagued by racism and McCarthyism, producer Jules Levey and script writer Herbert Biberman were pressed to lessen Holiday's and Armstrong's roles to avoid the impression that black people created jazz. The attempts failed because in 1947 Biberman was listed as one of the Hollywood Ten and sent to jail.

Several scenes were deleted from the film. "They had taken miles of footage of music and scenes," Holiday said, but "none of it was left in the picture. And very damn little of me. I know I wore a white dress for a number I did... and that was cut out of the picture." She recorded "The Blues Are Brewin'" for the film's soundtrack. Other songs included in the movie are "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" and "Farewell to Storyville".

Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than a thousand dollars a week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. Guy was banned from the set when he was found there by Holiday's manager, Joe Glaser.

By the late 1940s, Holiday had begun recording a number of slow, sentimental ballads. Metronome expressed its concerns in 1946 about "Good Morning Heartache", saying, "there's a danger that Billie's present formula will wear thin, but up to now it's wearing well." The New York Herald Tribune reported of a concert in 1946 that her performance had little variation in melody and no change in tempo.

1947–52: Legal troubles and Carnegie Hall concert

By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the DownBeat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard 's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome magazine popularity poll.

On May 16, 1947, Holiday was arrested for possession of narcotics in her New York apartment. On May 27 she was in court. "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday'. And that's just the way it felt," she recalled. During the trial, she heard that her lawyer would not come to the trial to represent her. "In plain English that meant no one in the world was interested in looking out for me," she said. Dehydrated and unable to hold down food, she pleaded guilty and asked to be sent to the hospital. The district attorney spoke in her defense, saying, "If your honor please, this is a case of a drug addict, but more serious, however, than most of our cases, Miss Holiday is a professional entertainer and among the higher rank as far as income was concerned." She was sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The drug possession conviction caused her to lose her New York City Cabaret Card; thereafter, she performed in concert venues and theaters.

Holiday was released early (on March 16, 1948), because of good behavior. When she arrived at Newark, her pianist Bobby Tucker and her dog Mister were waiting. The dog leaped at Holiday, knocking off her hat, and tackling her to the ground. "He began lapping me and loving me like crazy," she said. A woman thought the dog was attacking Holiday. She screamed, a crowd gathered, and reporters arrived. "I might just as well have wheeled into Penn Station and had a quiet little get-together with the Associated Press, United Press, and International News Service," she said.

Ed Fishman (who fought with Joe Glaser to be Holiday's manager) thought of a comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. Holiday hesitated, unsure audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear.

On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. 2,700 tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark," Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday unknowingly stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears," she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.

On April 27, 1948, Bob Sylvester and her promoter Al Wilde arranged a Broadway show for her. Titled Holiday on Broadway, it sold out. "The regular music critics and drama critics came and treated us like we were legit," she said. But it closed after three weeks.

Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949 in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco.

Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.

In October 1949, Holiday recorded "Crazy He Calls Me", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Gabler said the hit was her most successful recording for Decca after "Lover Man". The charts of the 1940s did not list songs outside the top 30, making it impossible to recognize minor hits. By the late 1940s, despite her popularity and concert power, her singles were little played on radio, perhaps because of her reputation.

Holiday's New York City Cabaret Card was revoked because of her 1947 conviction, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol for the remaining 12 years of her life.

The cabaret system started in 1940 and was intended to prevent people of "bad character" from working on licensed premises. A performer had to renew the license every two years. The system lasted until 1967. Clubs that sold alcohol in New York were among the highest-paying in the country. Club owners knew blacklisted performers had limited work and could offer a smaller salary. This reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958 she received a royalty of only $11. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue.

In 1948, Holiday played at the Ebony Club, which, because she lost her cabaret card, was against the law. Her manager, John Levy, was convinced he could get her card back and allowed her to open without one. "I opened scared," Holiday said, "[I was] expecting the cops to come in any chorus and carry me off. But nothing happened. I was a huge success."

Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948.

In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".

1952–59:

Lady Sings the Blues

By the 1950s, Holiday's drug abuse, drinking, and relationships with abusive men caused her health to deteriorate. She appeared on the ABC reality series The Comeback Story to discuss attempts to overcome her misfortunes. Her later recordings showed the effects of declining health on her voice, as it grew coarse and no longer projected its former vibrancy.

Holiday first toured Europe in 1954 as part of a Leonard Feather package. The Swedish impresario, Nils Hellstrom, initiated the "Jazz Club U.S.A." (after the Leonard Feather radio show) tour starting in Stockholm in January 1954 and then Germany, Netherlands, Paris and Switzerland. The tour party was Holiday, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Carl Drinkard, Elaine Leighton, Sonny Clark, Berryl Booker, Jimmy Raney, and Red Mitchell. A recording of a live set in Germany was released as Lady Love – Billie Holiday.

Holiday's late recordings for Verve constitute about a third of her commercially issued output and are as popular as her earlier records for Columbia, Commodore and Decca. In later years, her voice became more fragile, but it never lost the edge that had always made it distinctive.

Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, was ghostwritten by William Dufty and published in 1956. Dufty, a New York Post writer and editor then married to Holiday's close friend Maely Dufty, wrote the book quickly from a series of conversations with the singer in the Duftys' 93rd Street apartment. He also drew on the work of earlier interviewers and intended to let Holiday tell her story in her own way.

In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, and that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that's sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane."

To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published by Billboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now," wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following." "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.

On November 10, 1956, Holiday performed two concerts before packed audiences at Carnegie Hall. Live recordings of the second Carnegie Hall concert were released on a Verve/HMV album in the UK in late 1961 called The Essential Billie Holiday. The 13 tracks included on this album featured her own songs "I Love My Man", "Don't Explain" and "Fine and Mellow", together with other songs closely associated with her, including "Body and Soul", "My Man", and "Lady Sings the Blues" (her lyrics accompanied a tune by pianist Herbie Nichols).

The liner notes for this album were written partly by Gilbert Millstein of the New York Times, who, according to these notes, served as narrator of the Carnegie Hall concerts. Interspersed among Holiday's songs, Millstein read aloud four lengthy passages from her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. He later wrote:

The narration began with the ironic account of her birth in Baltimore – 'Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three' – and ended, very nearly shyly, with her hope for love and a long life with 'my man' at her side. It was evident, even then, that Miss Holiday was ill. I had known her casually over the years and I was shocked at her physical weakness. Her rehearsal had been desultory; her voice sounded tinny and trailed off; her body sagged tiredly. But I will not forget the metamorphosis that night. The lights went down, the musicians began to play and the narration began. Miss Holiday stepped from between the curtains, into the white spotlight awaiting her, wearing a white evening gown and white gardenias in her black hair. She was erect and beautiful; poised and smiling. And when the first section of narration was ended, she sang – with strength undiminished – with all of the art that was hers. I was very much moved. In the darkness, my face burned and my eyes. I recall only one thing. I smiled."

The critic Nat Hentoff of DownBeat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:

Throughout the night, Billie was in superior form to what had sometimes been the case in the last years of her life. Not only was there assurance of phrasing and intonation; but there was also an outgoing warmth, a palpable eagerness to reach and touch the audience. And there was mocking wit. A smile was often lightly evident on her lips and her eyes as if, for once, she could accept the fact that there were people who did dig her. The beat flowed in her uniquely sinuous, supple way of moving the story along; the words became her own experiences; and coursing through it all was Lady's sound – a texture simultaneously steel-edged and yet soft inside; a voice that was almost unbearably wise in disillusion and yet still childlike, again at the centre. The audience was hers from before she sang, greeting her and saying good-bye with heavy, loving applause. And at one time, the musicians too applauded. It was a night when Billie was on top, undeniably the best and most honest jazz singer alive.

Her performance of "Fine and Mellow" on CBS's The Sound of Jazz program is memorable for her interplay with her long-time friend Lester Young. Both were less than two years from death. Young died in March 1959. Holiday wanted to sing at his funeral, but her request was denied.

When Holiday returned to Europe almost five years later, in 1959, she made one of her last television appearances for Granada's Chelsea at Nine in London. Her final studio recordings were made for MGM Records in 1959, with lush backing from Ray Ellis and his Orchestra, who had also accompanied her on the Columbia album Lady in Satin the previous year (see below). The MGM sessions were released posthumously on a self-titled album, later retitled and re-released as Last Recording.

On March 28, 1957, Holiday married Louis McKay, a Mafia enforcer. McKay, like most of the men in her life, was abusive. They were separated at the time of her death, but McKay had plans to start a chain of Billie Holiday vocal studios, on the model of the Arthur Murray dance schools.

Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).

Death and legacy

By early 1959, Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis. Although she had initially stopped drinking on her doctor's orders, it was not long before she relapsed. By May of that same year, she had lost 20 pounds (9 kg). Her manager Joe Glaser, jazz critic Leonard Feather, photojournalist Allan Morrison, and the singer's own friends all tried in vain to persuade her to go to a hospital.

On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, under the order of Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939. She was arrested and handcuffed for drug possession as she lay dying, her hospital room was raided, and she was placed under police guard. On July 15, she received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. She died at 3:10 a.m. on July 17, of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver. She was 44. In her final years, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with US$0.70 in the bank. Her funeral Mass was held on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. The story of her burial plot and how it was managed by her estranged husband, Louis McKay, was documented on NPR in 2012.

Gilbert Millstein of New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:

Billie Holiday died in Metropolitan Hospital, New York, on Friday, July 17, 1959, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death, which, like her life, was disorderly and pitiful. She had been strikingly beautiful, but she was wasted physically to a small, grotesque caricature of herself. The worms of every kind of excess – drugs were only one – had eaten her. The likelihood exists that among the last thoughts of this cynical, sentimental, profane, generous and greatly talented woman of 44 was the belief that she was to be arraigned the following morning. She would have been, eventually, although possibly not that quickly. In any case, she removed herself finally from the jurisdiction of any court here below.

Vocal style and range

Holiday's delivery made her performances recognizable throughout her career. Her improvisation compensated for lack of musical education. Her contralto voice lacked range and was thin, and years of drug use altered its texture and gave it a fragile, raspy sound. Holiday said that she always wanted her voice to sound like an instrument and some of her influences were Louis Armstrong and the singer Bessie Smith. Her last major recording, a 1958 album entitled Lady in Satin, features the backing of a 40-piece orchestra conducted and arranged by Ray Ellis, who said of the album in 1997:

I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of "I'm a Fool to Want You." There were tears in her eyes ... After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn't until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was.

Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:

With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years.

Discography

Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records, and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death; as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.

Hit records

In 1986, Joel Whitburn's company Record Research compiled information on the popularity of recordings released from the era predating rock and roll and created pop charts dating back to the beginning of the commercial recording industry. The company's findings were published in the book Pop Memories 1890–1954. Several of Holiday's records are listed on the pop charts Whitburn created.

Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra."

Most of Holiday's early successes were released under the name "Teddy Wilson & His Orchestra." During her stay in Wilson's band, Holiday would sing a few bars and then other musicians would have a solo. Wilson, one of the most influential jazz pianists of the swing era, accompanied Holiday more than any other musician. He and Holiday issued 95 recordings together.

In July 1936, Holiday began releasing sides under her own name. These songs were released under the band name "Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra." Most noteworthy, the popular jazz standard "Summertime" sold well and was listed on the pop charts of the time at number 12, the first time the jazz standard charted. Only Billy Stewart's R&B version of "Summertime" reached a higher chart placement than Holiday's, charting at number 10 thirty years later in 1966.

Holiday had 16 best selling songs in 1937, making the year her most commercially successful. It was in this year that Holiday scored her sole number one hit as a featured vocalist on the available pop charts of the 1930s, "Carelessly". The hit "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", was also recorded by Ray Noble, Glen Gray and Fred Astaire whose rendering was a best seller for weeks. Holiday's version ranked 6 on the year-end single chart available for 1937.

In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.

In 1940, Billboard began publishing its modern pop charts, which included the Best Selling Retail Records chart, the precursor to the Hot 100. None of Holiday's songs placed on the modern pop charts, partly because Billboard only published the first ten slots of the charts in some issues. Minor hits and independent releases had no way of being spotlighted.

"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboard's year-end top songs of 1941.

On October 24, 1942, Billboard began issuing its R&B charts. Two of Holiday's songs placed on the chart, "Trav'lin' Light" with Paul Whiteman, which topped the chart, and "Lover Man", which reached number 5. "Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboard's year-end chart.

Studio LPs

Legacy

When Holiday died, The New York Times published a short obituary on page 15 without a byline. She left an estate of $1,000 and her best recordings from the '30s were mostly out of print. Holiday's public stature grew in the following years. In 1961 she was voted to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame and soon after Columbia reissued nearly a hundred of her early records. In 1972 Diana Ross' portrayal of Holiday in Lady Sings The Blues was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. Holiday would go on to be nominated for 23 posthumous Grammy awards.

Billie Holiday received several Esquire Magazine awards during her lifetime. Her posthumous awards also include being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame. In 1985 Baltimore, Maryland erected a statue of Billie Holiday that was completed in 1993 with additional panels of images inspired by her seminal song Strange Fruit. In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Holiday near Queens Borough Hall.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Billie Holiday among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Filmography

1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra

1935: Symphony in Black, short (with Duke Ellington)

1947: New Orleans

1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet

#04/07 #07/17

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randomnameless · 6 years ago

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Final Chapter - Dozel to Freege!

Seliph continues to liberate the land of his grandfather, and settles down the feud the Chalphyians had with the Freeges for 3 generations.

AND WE SEE THE RISE AND FALL OF OUR HERO - SCIPIO OF JUNGBY

You had men out there? I forgot. I was focused on, you know, the Master Knight with a Holy Weapon.

I hope you’re calling your men cowards, not the Dozels! Or is it another way of Kaga to pile shit on the Dozels, even from within their side?

Yeah, once and for all given how you’re one of the rare bosses to run away and not to die when we defeat you.

A plan?

This is a way to warn the player of what kind of backup units/mechanics are going to happen, so we won’t be going “WTF” at, idk, ballistaes popping up after the 10th turn in a defense map, but it defeats the plot purpose!

there’s no surprise here, so of course Hilda’s plan doesn’t work. If we knew in FE5 that Dastard Jr was going to blow up the bridge after we sent units to cross it, then to send Reinhardt and his pals on us, it wouldn’t have the same impact - we would curse Saias less, but his “tactician” gimmick wouldn’t be translated into the game

Hilda means to fight to death. Well, this is the final map so...

The Gelbenritter, or what’s left of it looks menacing! Hopefully Arvis gave Seliph the Tyrfing in the previous chapter, else Seliph wouldn’t have been able to plow through those guys like Ares does on a regular basis - welp that sounds wrong doesn’t it

What do you mean, random? Is this not a holy war on its own, us having to fight against Loptyr himself?

HE ASKS US TO SUMMON THE TRIFORCE? SUMMON THE POWER OF THE HYLIAN GODDESSES SELIPH!

?? To this day, I still don’t understand what the fuck are those trails. Julia and Seliph? Leif and Seliph? Julia vs Julius? (one good light vs one evil light?)

At least he gave us sufficient funds to repair our HWs.

“slow down you jackass you have a horse now !”

“remember you’re weak and i have to protect you, the usual routine” “hey i have my holy weapon now”

? You’re scared now, but when we were fighting in Thracia you weren’t? OTOH this is the end of the journey, and during Siggy’s end everything burnt, so maybe Larcei’s afraid of that, or she knows that if she manages to rekt Julius before, now he is stronger.

IDK, maybe having your WIFE and not only her BLADE at your side?

Larcei’s supposed to find this romantic, or she’s pissed, idk.

Finally someone’s going to sing something good about the Crusdaders, Neir and co!

smite the devil with a demonic blade? Like in Pokémon when ghost attacks are very effective against ghost types?

Odo and Hezul hated each other guts or something? One is a saint, the other wields a demonic blade...

Apparently Baldur is only remembered as very pious, or something? the Tyrfing shines in the dark?

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER CRUSADERS DAMN IT

and Baldur “shines a light” but Heim “prays”? I mean, if something should be shiny and have a “light” imagery, it should be the Book of Naga, not the Tyrfing but...

Ooh!

So Heim prays to the white dragon who destroys the shadow dragon, that’s why praying is important and Heim’s reserved stuff!

So the white dragon means light? Baldur and Heim were cosy enough to share their attributes, or Baldur did something awesome to be called the holy knight with a sword that shines light?

Well, wait 60 turns and see.

for we have the power of savestates at our disposal?

OTOH, if Seliph and Julia die here... We can only pull a Manfroy with Linoan, and hope for her Naga-grandson to continue the fight

Children will finish what their parents started, the game is called Genealogy after all!

or he is talking about the power of savestates

MMH

Never lost? The Barahra family nearly went extinct because someone only had eyes for a married woman who ran away!

You believe in Lester, who’s only following us?

I believe in Linoan too, even if she isn’t in the game. Or by light you meant people who want to fight against Loptyr?

You raised more questions than answers, but this song makes me understand what the randoms in Granvalle are really thinking (or what Finn thinks they’re thinking^^) - only the sword crusader counts and that irks me a lot!

Stop swarming us from the rear damn it genealogy of the rear attack : the holy innuendo

Scipio is into dubious kinks

more seriously, who compares himself to a snake? That’s not a noble animal!

DERMOTT NO - he managed to dodge this

Hilda knew Tailte had another child? She must have heard about how Tine defected to join her brother and made 1+1.

She can dirty them around killing randoms, but not by killing Hilda? It doesn’t make any sense :’(

Hilda’s aware that she’s going to hell? Or that, whatever she is/was doing, she knew it was something that no one could condone?

HOW’S THAT “WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE”

You’re being rude to your street urchin of a cousin Scipio!

the sprites beg to differ, but again, to Scipio and everyone around his age who grew up in the empire Siggy and pals, even Briggid were traitors!

Family bonding time :)

ULSTER NO

YOU RUINED THEIR FAMILY BONDING TIME :’(

Maybe he felt conflicted by hearing that he is the son of Jamke and how the Empire and the Jungbies never gave a flying fuck about his country

Fee remembered that Arthur’s dad was the guy who berated Arthur’s mom for wanting to kill her own dad, Arthur mustn’t slay his relatives! So she’s the one to kill Hilda.

Farewell Hilda, at least you’ll join Blume and you’ll live happily ever after together, with your daughter joining you in the next update!

Come on i’ve seen this before

Try to be more inventive next time, would you?

Finally, we settle things with Freeges! By seizing their castles!

Seliph thinks of the children :)

Felipe ex machina

Oldvis had an aide? With Aida dead, he maybe wanted to share his dastardly plans to someone, or maybe he wanted to talk to anyone who wouldn’t trashtalk him unlike his son(s?)...

OMG OMG OMG

Even the ones from Thracia?

THEY’RE ALL HIDING!!!!

Which raises several issues, how can they all fit, how many were they, how come no one noticed that no children were in Belhalla and reported it to Julius, etc...

Remember that Hilda was the Queen of Miletos, so she spent the majority of her time there!!

And Freege isn’t Hilda’s city, but the Ducal seat of Blume and the Tordo royals!

and here the Ishtar gambit is revealed!

So Ishtar has wrath in her skillset? I never noticed

Hm... You haven’t met a lot of people.

She and Oldvis were really getting along then! We could glimpse it in their convo, too bad it ended in, well, you know. Loptyrpocalypse ruins everything.

Oh, so the children signed their presence sheet, then skipped the “i will sacrifice myself for the sake of Loptyr, our God and Savior” classes.

It still doesn’t make any sense, but why not

They’re going to gie you armorslayers and vulneraries, ask Leif!

Thank you revealing crucial elements of caracterisation the game couldn’t offer us in some other way

“Some results” is the reason why so many people joined Seliph’s quest, and the symbol of the Empire’s tyranny, but whatever

But yes, the real job awaits.

Dead is the only logical conclusion, but the game isn’t logical. And how’s that the only option? Master draconic tactician can’t guess that Loptyr murdered the only one who can kill him before she could hold the tome of Naga?

Or is he desperatly clinging to the little shred of hope he has of Julia being alive not to think about his own naivety of letting her get captured when she is the only one able to save the world?

That’s not what you told us in Chapter 6, you said only Seliph’s destiny was “to free the world from this evil grip” as the “one true heir of Saint Heim”

Freeing the world from the evil grip means getting rid of the idiot sitting in Belhalla, right?

Hopefully even this guy doesn’t contradict the game’s lore. At least one positive point I found about you, yay!

“what about you, you raised her for years?”

“i only fed her wild berries and gave her a roof - i spent more time training Arthur in wind magic than talking and being a relative to Julia, remember how i dropped her on you during your Isaachian campaign without any tomes or staves?”

Hopefully, Julia dosn’t need to be convinced by those dolts, because it’s her destiny as a Falchion to slay an evil Dragon!

#FE4 run #FE4 #final chapter #we finally close the Freege and Jungby chapters #the last one was disappointing as i already pointed out #i don't know if the random's song was really indicative of anything but #why singing about Baldur and not the other granvallians crusaders #or the others from the others countries?#because Seliph's Chalphyian?#and Ares and Shanan are by his side?#Altena too #i know she can die but Shanan and Ares too so why?#i mean Faval helped us just like Ced and we just shit on them?#and really what is going on with all of the light related stuff for Chalphy? I though Belhalla was all light and stuff #because naga #i start to grow as pissed as Oosawa!Langbalt about this #i know our heroes are from chalphy #but there are 13 crusaders #we don't see Roland being raised above the other heroes in FE7/6 #even if roy Eliwood and Hector are from Lycia #so why the special treatment?#RIP hilda :'(

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auroraphilealis · 8 years ago

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Steal My Heart (steal my whole life too) (1/24)

Title: Steal My Heart (steal my whole life too)

Genre: Chaptered, fantasy AU, Prince!Phil, Thief!Dan, romance, enemies to lovers, angst and fluff, slow burn (like serious slow burn)

Warnings: some violence, mentions of death (no main characters), dark magic, descriptions of wounds/blood, some hints of sexual scenes (but no actual smut), murder, dangerous situations, stealing/thievery

Summary: Captain of the Royal Guard and Prince of Morellia, Philip Lester has never been given the chance to find love. Instead, he’s run from a system that works to end class differences and improve equality for its citizens. Happy as he is to make the world a better place, Phil can’t help feeling bitter towards his ancestors for making it impossible for him to find someone who will actually love him for more than just his title, and strives instead for a life of justice and doing good - only to meet his match in the King of Thieves, a man who will change everything he once thought he knew in life. Together, they must depart on a quest to save the kingdom, and, in the process, destroy their differences and find their own form of love.

Word count: 240,000+

Updates: Sunday

A/N: ineverhadmyinternetphase: if you follow me for ace/aro fic, this one might not be for you, as it is very much not ace aro. But if you like slow burn enemies to lovers then come right on in. I have to say this is the fic I’m most proud of ever, it’s the first RP that Eliza and I ever did and it’s just a whole lot of fun. It also means a lot to me because it was the first time I ever RPed Dan and I’m really proud of the little thief I created. Also Eliza’s Prince Phil stole my heart a very long time ago. Be ready for a heck of a slow burn though, it’s very long and set in a whole other fantasy world that we built as we went. I hope you’ll all enjoy it as much as I do, it’s been in the works for a very long time but now we’re finally ready to share it with you all and I’m super excited xD

Insanityplays: I’m like ready to cry because this fic is my baby. I literally adore everything about it, spend half of my time thinking about it, and want nothing more than to share it with the world. Truly, Prince!Phil and Thief!Dan have stolen my heart, so please take care of them <3 This was my first ever RP with Julia, and it’s truly what made me fall in love with her.

Thanks so much to @phansdick for betaing this giant monster, as she’s been super helpful and encouraging with her little comments and endless excitement. We couldn’t have done it without you <3

Disclaimer: In no way do I claim that this is real or cast aspersions on Dan or Phil

For reference, @insanityplaysfics is Phil, @ineverhadmyinternetphase is Dan

(Masterlist) (AO3)

Chapter One

It wasn't exactly an easy life being Captain of the Royal Guard and Prince of the kingdom, second only in line to his older brother and rightful heir to the throne Martyn Lester, but Phil Lester had learned to manage. In fact, he'd even learned to enjoy himself, and it helped that his family was a loved one. Their kingdom had been thriving peacefully under the Lester reign for over a hundred and fifty years now, lending them a happy kind of credibility that Phil knew for a fact not many other kingdoms had a chance to enjoy.

Things were good in Morellia. Phil’s father, the reigning King Harold Lester, had always been strong in politics, and he’d long since negotiated peace between the nations at their borders, securing trade and movement agreements to keep everyone happy. The economy was flourishing, and while there were still countless dangers from far away Kingdoms and the dark creatures that lurked in the forests to the North and South of the Palace Walls, war did not loom on their horizon.

The people were happy, and Phil. Well, Phil was happy too. Mostly.

See, while Phil's family was well-loved and largely accepting of their people, allowing their kingdom far more freedoms than was sometimes commonly heard of, this practice was not always a positive one for Phil.

Things were different in Morellia: there were class differences, but they were largely bridged through the work of Phil's father and his father before him, and there was poverty, but no one was tethered by their birth. There were always ways to move up in the world, and there were no laws forbidding or forcing marriage between or out of classes. Instead, Phil's grandfather and father had both married from the common people, and now Phil's brother was betrothed to a woman they’d both grown up in the Castle with. Cornelia’s mother was a long-time employee of the Lester family, and as was due all palace employee’s children, Cornelia had gotten the best education alongside both Phil and Martyn. It came as no surprise to anyone when the two fell in love.

That left Phil the only Prince left in the kingdom unbetrothed, un-tethered, and far too recognizable for his own good.

Since both Phil and Martyn had grown up in a world where it was ordinary for the common people to throw in their names for dating candidacy, and since there was no arranged marriage and therefore no arranged dating, Phil and Martyn had always had the pick of the lot. Only, this had never felt like a benefit to Phil. Instead, it had always left a bitter taste in his mouth, because every time he'd thought he'd fancied a girl, he'd turn around the corner and find her whispering away to her friends about how she only liked Prince Philip because Prince Martyn was dating that other girl, and if she couldn't be Queen, then she'd settle for Princess.

One too many heartbreaks later, Phil had eventually decided to give up dating altogether, never once having even received his first kiss while Martyn pranced about singing when he lost his virginity. Disgruntled and ashamed, Phil had turned his training to the Royal Guard, until, when he'd turned twenty-three, Captain Kregin had retired and named Phil the new Captain.

Loved and admired by his men, Phil had sunk himself in, netting wanted criminal after wanted criminal and making a name for himself slowly but surely, building his reputation until he was more than just a less pretty version of his brother.

In fact, despite his men being sometimes too protective and concerned for Phil’s safety, Phil had almost single-handedly destroyed the entire crime syndicate of the palace city - or at least the thieving network - and nearly the entire wanted list while he was at it. The only name left was the most formidable thief Morellia had ever seen; the legendary King of Thieves, and he was the bane of Phil’s existence.

Love had been traded out for Justice, and now, nearly an entire year into leading the Royal Guard, Phil had finally cornered his greatest adversary.

"Stand down, outlaw. We've got you cornered. There's nowhere left to run," Phil stated proudly, sat atop his horse and unable to help his smug grin as he pointed the tip of his great sword at the nose of the thief the Royal Guard had been chasing for years.

Said legendary King of Thieves was a rugged young man, barely more than a boy really at the ripe age of nineteen, named Daniel Howell. No one knew his true name, though, and only a very select few of his most trusted allies knew to call him ‘Dan’. To everyone else, he was the King of Thieves, and he’d been plaguing Morellia for years.

He hadn’t been alone, either. Dan had gathered a band of thieves about himself, only the best of the best joining his gang, and while their actions were widespread, lately, Dan had been focusing more and more on the capital. Some of the kingdom’s poorest lived there, after all.

Dan hadn’t become known as the King of Thieves for nothing. It had taken a lot for the people to love him enough to give him that title. To the upper classes of Morellia, Dan was a figure to be feared and hated, a story told to children to make them stay in their bed at night. To the poor community, though, Dan had become something of a figurehead, stealing from only the very richest in the capital and then setting up a market in the night where the poor families, orphaned children, and sickly people could come to get food or treasures to sell on the black market.

Whether it was moral or not, Dan didn’t care. He didn’t think too much on justice, didn’t even let himself think of companionship. Even his band of thieves were kept at a distance, and he was seen to them as a distant commander. If they broke his rules and stole from someone who couldn’t afford it, then they’d see and fear his wrath.

Or, at least, they had been able to. In recent months, ever since that abominable Prince Philip had become Captain of the Royal Guard, every single one of Dan’s trusted band of thieves had been picked off one-by-one. He’d tried desperately to keep hold of his structure, to keep stealing and giving to the markets he’d set up at night, but treasure grew more and more scarce as there were fewer and fewer thieves available to steal for him.

Eventually, Dan was the only one left. He didn’t give up, though. The rush of adrenaline that always accompanied stealing drove him to break into one of the richest houses in the capital, hunting one of the greatest treasures celebrated throughout Morellia: the Duchess of Ara’s prized emerald. He'd planned this heist down to the last detail for weeks. Ordinarily, he'd have jumped in feet-first straight away and made off with the emerald ages ago, but his steps had been dogged by Prince-fucking-Philip’s Royal Guard, and they were severely limiting Dan's movements.

Not that he was struggling, because he wasn't. Dan knew how good of a thief he was. He'd been doing this since he was ten years old and had cared for his brother, his stealing having only stepped up after his brother's passing two years later. Dan had vowed never to be poor again, and by hook or by crook, he was going to succeed.

And, for the most part, he had achieved his dream.

Dan had a nice pile of gold tucked away in a cave in the desert near the crown city, impenetrable to all but himself; he’d never shown anyone else its interior. His most prized possessions were tucked away there, the secrets of his past that no one but he was allowed to know. The cave was his home, but he couldn’t stay there as often as he liked. In order to keep on top of such a widespread campaign, Dan had set up several bases in the different cities of Morellia, each filled with trinkets he stole and then used to buy food for each city’s poorest. The base he was proudest of was in Morellia itself, and it was there he was headed - if he could just shake Prince-fucking-Philip off his trail.

The trouble was, Prince Philip seemed to be hell-bent on eradicating thievery from his land entirely (which, why? Couldn't he just let Dan steal in peace?), and he'd set about tracking Dan's every movement until Dan could barely turn around without seeing another flaming Royal Guardsmen on his trail. In the end, he'd grown impatient of waiting, and dove for the emerald anyway.

Which was why Dan now found himself currently cornered in the back streets of the capital, the emerald tucked into his trademark black cloak, and Prince-fucking-Philip's sword pointed in his face.

Dan licked his lips, eyes darting left-to-right. Unfortunately, it seemed the Prince was right - Dan was trapped with his back to the wall, surrounded by the Prince's horsemen while Dan was only on his feet. The priceless emerald he’d stolen sat heavy in his cloak, but like hell was Dan giving it up - especially on his first physical encounter with this Prince who'd been making his life hell ever since he’d taken over the Royal Guard. Why couldn't he just go back to prissy palace life like his brother, Crown Prince Martyn?

Dan had no trouble recognising the man. He'd seen Philip Lester's face in all of the public ceremonies, same as any other citizen of Morellia. Dan had just never really paid attention until now. Prince Philip was young - older than Dan, perhaps, but still young for his job - and his eyes were fierce, the kind that told Dan he may be in trouble.

(He was also kind of pretty, but Dan didn't have time for that right now.

...Who was he kidding, he always had time for that).

"Well," Dan drawled slowly, adopting a languid position with his back against the wall. "I can see why you'd think that, Prince. But we thieves are rather good at finding our way out of tight spots. Though I don't expect you'd know that, locked up in your prissy palace as you are. Do you know anything of the criminal world?"

Phil gritted his teeth as the King of Thieves spoke up in front of him, relaxing against the wall Phil had him backed up against as if nothing was wrong at all, as if he wasn't just on the verge of being captured and tried in the High Court. Phil prodded his horse that little bit further forward, drawing on its reins to pull it up short, and shifted his sword so the blade was glinting just underneath the thief's throat. The thief didn't even blink, his lazy grin and countenance already beginning to grate on Phil's nerves.

Somehow, he'd never imagined the King of Thieves would be quite like this; mouthy and rude. Why he’d thought otherwise, he didn’t know.

"Watch your tongue, thief," Phil growled, unimpressed. "I know enough to know you're all alone out here. Locked up the rest of your friends, haven't I?" he taunted haughtily, that same smug grin from before pulling at the corners of his lips all over again. He just couldn't help it, he was so goddamn proud. Phil Lester, Head of the Royal Guard for less than a year, and he had the King of Thieves pressed up against a wall, dark hood of his trademark cloak long since blown back off the top of his head.

That face was a face that Phil would never forget; dark hair and even darker eyes, warm despite the horrible things Phil knew this thief to do.

"Hand over the Emerald and come quietly, and I might even find you a proper cell to lock you up in," Phil demanded.

Behind him, three of his strongest men sat fanned out around him, blocking off the dark alleyway they'd managed to corner the King of Thieves in, horses panting and snorting in agitation at standing still after such a long chase through the back streets of the dingiest part of the royal town. Phil could hear them clipping their horseshoes against the gravel below them, the sun burning down against the back of Phil's neck. His armor creaked as he pushed his sword that little bit tighter to the thief’s neck as he waited for a response

"I mean," Dan still spoke exaggeratedly slowly, giving himself time to assess the situation. "I could hand over the emerald, sure."

Carefully, Dan edged back a little against the wall, relieving some of the pressure from the blade pressed up against his neck. The silver glinted dully in the lamplights from the street, the night sky sitting heavy with cloud above them. Dan did his best not to swallow - the feeling of cold metal against the bare skin of his throat was far from pleasant.

Dan was not unused to such scenarios, though. He'd become well versed in escaping guards over his nineteen years of life - even if most of the guards he encountered had nothing close to the shining silver armour currently adorning Prince Philip's handsome body.

"Or," Dan continued, deciding to have a bit of fun. He'd spotted a possible escape route - the wall he was leaning against had a good foothold, and led up to the rooftop of one of the city's halls which Dan knew from experience he could scamper across to get back to his base. He just needed to keep Prince Philip talking until he was able to escape.

Phil narrowed his eyes at the thief’s words, waiting for the other shoe to drop, sword glistening dangerously to his own eyes. He lifted his chin, brow furrowed as he watched the thief's eyes dart about the small enclave they'd cornered him in. Phil's horse whinnied, and Phil pulled up on it's reins.

The horses were growing impatient.

"Or...?" Phil repeated, waiting. He didn't want or have time to play these stupid games, wasn't dumb enough to believe that the thief was doing anything other than attempting to stall, and yet he stood there vaguely intrigued, waiting to see what the famous King of Thieves would do.

"Or, I could just keep it." Dan slowly reached inside his cloak, withdrawing the emerald wrapped in dark cloth sitting temptingly in the palm of his hand. Its weight was comfortably heavy, a good strong presence, and Dan could feel his lust for treasure rearing inside his chest. This emerald would look so good next to his collection of precious stones. He could even use it as a paperweight for his more precious scrolls.

Yeah, there was no way in hell Dan was giving this emerald up.

Digging up his bravery, Dan looked up at Prince Philip, sat on his horse, and gave him a slow, arrogant smirk. "Unless you beg for it, of course. I kind of like my time outside your dungeons - you'd better make this good."

"As if we would let you keep the Emerald, Thief," Phil scoffed, rolling his eyes and pressing his sword ever closer to Dan. "And the last thing I plan to do is beg to you." Phli's voice had dropped an octave, dangerous as he bared his teeth at Dan. The emerald was right there, wrapped up in a pretty, dark cloth, and Phil knew, if he let him, Dan would have it stowed away again in seconds - or worse yet, find a way to get away. With the hand holding his horse's reins, Phil dropped them and reached out.

"Give it here," he demanded, and really, that was his first mistake.

Dan was moving the second the Prince dropped his horse's reins.

In an instant, he was no longer against the wall. Instead, he dropped, falling gracefully sideways to avoid the blade still at his neck, using the Prince's new found imbalance against him, because really, did this Prince think he could just let his horse sit there with no control and Dan wouldn’t use that to his advantage?

As Dan dropped into a practiced crouch, his eyes darted around the tiny corner he'd found himself in, and - yes, there - to his right, a tiny little ledge, barely visible, but just enough for his purposes. Dan scuttled towards it in his crouch, listening to the Prince's horse whicker as he moved. He was counting on the animal's desire to get out of this alley to aid him in his escape - after all, horses did not like being kept in cramped places, and especially not by riders who were stupid enough to drop their reins. As he’d predicted, the Captain’s horse shuffled back when Dan moved forward, clearly eager to be out of the alley. That eagerness gave Dan enough space to move, if not escape.

Phil really should have seen it coming. The minute the reins had left his hands, the King of Thieves was dropping into a crouch, causing Phil's horse to startle, whinnying and rearing back. Phil barely kept hold of her, gripping tight to her mane in fear of his safety and hers, the arm with the sword practiced enough in combat that Phil not only maintained his hold, but prevented himself from thrashing out and slashing anyone in arm’s length, including the great thief himself or Phil's horse.

"You're cornered, thief!" Phil crowed as he worked to get his startled and impatient mare under his control once more. She tossed her head, trying to loosen Phil's hold, but his legs gripped her tight around the sides, and though he could not find the reins once more to control her, he did yip at her, using his training to his best ability to calm her down. "Where are you meant to run? Whether you're under my sword or not, we'll not move to let you leave."

Phil kept his watchful eye on the thief as his horse bayed and tossed her head, swinging his sword around to once again point it at King of Thieves nose.

Carefully, Dan edged back towards the ledge, his eyes meeting the Prince's once again as he casually said, “Yes, well, it might look that way to you.” He couldn't yet completely relax - the Prince still had a sword, after all, and even without it being pressed to Dan's neck, he knew he wasn't in the clear just yet. He needed a couple more seconds - one more distraction, one more mistake by Prince Philip, and Dan would be up on the ledge and gone.

The other three Royal Guardsmen were still flanking the Prince, but the limited space in the alley rendered them almost entirely useless - unless Dan tried to run.

Luckily, he wasn't going to run.

At least, not that way.

First things first, though - he had to make sure to keep the Prince just angry enough to still make mistakes. So he looked the Prince directly in the eyes - he'd already seen Dan's face, there was no use hiding it now - and grinned.

Straight up grinned, like he was having the best time of his life, and not edging near a ledge, about to flee.

"So you see," Dan drawled, casually bouncing the emerald up-and-down in his hand, "I kind of don't really want to give this back yet. Got some redecorating to do at home, you know? It'll look perfect near my magnolias."

The thief smiled at Phil, their eyes meeting directly for the first time, brown to blue, and Phil found himself very nearly winded and very much confused.

There was so much in those deep, dark eyes, so much that he couldn’t understand, and it was shocking, to be pinned so effectively underneath them.

Phil watched as the stolen emerald was tossed up and down, and then, he lunged, snarling as the King of Thieves dared to snark and tease him, his smirk damn near unbearable.

That was Phil's second mistake.

In moments, his mare was whinnying loudly and rearing onto her back legs, sending Phil flying from her back as she took off at a stern run out of the alley, taking Phil’s three guards and their horses with her as well. The sound of their baying echoed through the alley long after they’d gone, all while Phil groaned as he hit the ground.

The fall was enough to wind him for a moment, though his armor took most of the blow from his hard landing on the dark cobblestones below. Lucky as he was, Phil managed to keep his head from striking the ground, suddenly feeling rather ridiculous he hadn’t worn his helmet for the chase that day.

It took all of a few seconds for Phil to push himself into a sitting position, but when he did, he found himself left watching as the King of Thieves expertly scaled the wall in front of him and hauled himself up onto the nearby roof, not looking to have any trouble at all.

Dan was up the wall in seconds, the emerald stashed away inside his cloak once again. He could feel the ragged material billowing out behind him as he scaled the wall with practiced movements, the ground dropping further and further away behind him. He could hear horse's hooves thundering away and couldn't help but grin - his plan had worked perfectly. The Royal Guard was gone. For a second there, with the Prince's blade at his nose, Dan had felt a moment of doubt.

He’d made it, though. As he always did.

When he reached the top of the wall, Dan pulled himself easily up onto the nearest rooftop - which he thought may have been the city library, though he wasn't sure as his sense of direction had been a bit turned around when he was being chased across the city. Either way, he should be able to find his way back towards his base safely enough from these rooftops.

Dan sat back on his heels, carefully reaching into his cloak to check on the emerald. It was heavy in his grip, warmed by his flesh and racing heartbeat - these sorts of chases always got him going.

He slowly rose to his feet, doing his usual check of his surroundings, and it was only then that he noticed the Prince still in the alley below him - horseless and completely backup-less, probably for the first time in his entire royal life.

Gritting his teeth, Phil pushed himself to his feet, not bothering to look behind him; he knew his men were gone, carried away by their runaway horses.

Leaning over, eyes never once leaving the proud thief above him, Phil picked up his sword.

He wasn't at all surprised when the King of Thieves turned up on the rooftop, cloak billowing out behind him once more, and found Phil standing below him.

For a moment, a brief expression of surprise flashed over his features, and then a smirk spread across his lips, an expression that made Phil's fingers clench hard around his sword handle. He could feel himself aching to follow after the proud man flaunting himself above Phil if for no other reason than wounded pride, but he did no such thing, instead choosing to glare up at the thief he’d been chasing for months now.

Dan blinked. He'd expected the Prince to run, but no - his horse must have thrown him, or he'd jumped off in some misguided attempt to capture Dan himself. Either way, Dan was slightly impressed - it took guts to stay alone in a dark alley in this area of the city. Now, the Prince was standing there glaring up at him, and he cut quite a figure - burly in his shining armour, his sword still in his palm, and those eyes - the depths of those blue eyes, so pure and certain. He looked like a knight straight out of one of the history books Dan loved.

Dan was pleased. The Prince was still down there, and Dan was safe up here - he could afford to play some more.

"What was that about me being cornered?" he teased lightly. Just because he could, Dan adopted a dramatic stance atop the roof, his cloak billowing out behind him, the emerald still visible in his grip.

"From where I'm standing, Prince Philip, I think you may need to reassess your situation. I highly doubt you can stop me from all the way down there." Dan allowed himself another lazy smirk. "I'm rather enjoying the view, actually."

"I found you once, King of Thieves, I'll find you again," Phil gritted out, watching as the thief posed above him, flaunting the way his hips jutted out smartly, the way his cloak billowed about him proudly. There was no man like the King of Thieves, and Phil would not soon forget his face, his demeanor, anything about him really.

Those eyes would haunt his dreams.

There was a rugged handsomeness about him as well that kept Phil's attention, but he would shove those thoughts aside for now, use them to his advantage when he needed them, and try, try not to let his anger and pride get the better of him next time.

But that was easier said than done, and as the King of Thieves taunted Phil once more, he dropped his sword, quickly flinging away the armor on his body. It would only weigh him down more.

"Don't be so sure of yourself. You think I got to be Head of the Royal Guard without proving myself? Why don't you keep standing there and see what happens?" Phil growled, throwing away his chest plate last of all and marching towards the very part of the wall the King of Thieves had used to scale up to the rooftop he stood upon now.

Phil's chest was heaving, and he knew he was being ridiculous, but he couldn't seem to help himself with this man, this man who had proven a formidable foe that Phil vowed to himself to one day take down.

Dan's brows shot up when the Prince began removing his armour right in front of him. The man had to be insane, right? He had to know that Dan had scaled a near-impossible wall, the handholds barely visible. Dan had no trouble, but that was because he'd been making such escapes since his very earliest childhood. What hope did a prissy palace Prince have?

Not that Dan was complaining about the view, mind. He couldn't help the way his eyes trailed down Prince Philip's chest as he removed the last of his armour. There were muscles rippling under there - Dan wondered if his strength came anywhere close to Dan's own.

His brows rose even higher when the Prince approached the wall. This guy had to be kidding, surely? He must know that Dan wasn't exactly unarmed (the three daggers concealed about his person were old friends), and yet he was climbing up towards Dan without any protection other than his own strength.

This man had guts. Dan was having to do a very quick character reassessment of everything he knew about Prince Philip.

"I mean, I'm sure you Royal Guardsmen have trained very hard," Dan replied slowly, deliberately making his tone as patronising as he could, "But are you sure you want to risk this, Prince? You're coming up to my world now."

Phil was trembling with anger now, teeth gritted and muscles bunched, tensed as he tried to hold himself back. Was this thief still taunting him? Did he still have the gall to tease Prince Philip Lester, the man who'd just stripped away his armor, thrown his sword to the floor, and was threatening to scale a wall to reach him?

Some part of Phil, the deep, intelligent part of Phil, knew that this man, this King of Thieves, was being patronizing on purpose, trying to rile Phil up, trying to bring Phil down to his level, and yet, that didn't stop him, didn't slow down his anger in the least. In fact, it only fueled it until Phil was letting out a low growl of frustration and throwing himself at the wall, one foot catching hold of a small ledge that Phil was convinced Dan had found to haul himself up in the first place.

Phil hadn't been lying, and Dan could tease and mess with Phil all he wanted; the Royal Guard were trained, and trained hard. Phil knew how to scale a goddamned wall.

Dan knew he should probably run, but - and he hated to admit this - he was fascinated. Fascinated by this Prince's gall, his determination. He had to watch how this played out.

"I admit, your determination to catch me is impressive," Dan continued smoothly as he slid the emerald back inside his cloak. It was lined with pockets that were never empty, always filled with stolen coins and other precious jewels. "I'm actually quite flattered. Are you lavishing your attention upon me, Prince? Should I be blushing like a pretty maiden?"

Dan stood on the balls of his feet, tracking the Prince's every movement. Carefully, he reached down into his left boot and slid out his little dagger, the blade wickedly sharp. Should the Prince actually manage to get up the wall, he wouldn't find Dan unarmed.

"Perhaps you should be, thief. I'm certain this is the most attention you've had in years. When was the last time you laid in bed with a women?" Phil gritted out, his hands and feet finding hand holds and ledges aplenty nearly on instinct as he scaled the wall, unable to watch the thief above him as he went, but certain he wouldn't move. The drive and anger in Phil kept him going until he reached the top, and then he was scrambling, reaching into his belt to pull free a very small, very fine dagger he'd had since he was a boy.

It took one quick bound to land Phil on the roof with Dan, and he moved instinctively away from the edge, driving Dan backwards as quickly as he could.

Phil didn't want either of them to die, tonight.

Dan should probably stop being surprised by Prince Philip right about now, but really, the last thing he'd expected was for the Prince to scale the wall almost as easily as Dan had. A tiny flicker of doubt crossed Dan's mind - this was the second time he'd underestimated the Prince, and a third time could see him killed. Or at the very least, captured. The Prince was too fair a man to kill him without good reason.

Thankfully, Dan had no such qualms.

He dropped back into his crouch when the Prince's head appeared over the wall, the dagger feeling natural in his hand, but then the Prince was up and moving towards him, forcing Dan backwards.

Dan was light on his feet, his movements sinuous as he allowed the Prince to move them away from the edge of the roof. This could work to his advantage - Dan had the whole network of connected rooftops at his back. If he really needed to, he could flee. He knew this place like the back of his hand, whereas he doubted whether the Prince had ever been up here before. Dan had the advantage in this world.

"I'm afraid women don't really do it for me," Dan answered the Prince's baited question easily enough with another slow smirk. "Now, handsome princes, on the other hand..." Dan slid easily to the left, circling Phil slowly, like a wildcat stalking its prey. "That's a whole other matter. I could destroy you, Prince Philip. What do you say? Willing to risk chasing the King of Thieves himself?"

The King of Thieves was quick and light on his feet, crouching low and bounding backwards almost faster than Phil could keep up. Phil had always been heavy on his feet, kind of bumbling even now despite his training, and so he was forced to hang back, watch his feet, focus on not falling off the roof while the thief did not face those challenges.

It hardly mattered, though. Phil had proved his point: that he could match the King of Thieves, and that he would never give up.

His eyes went wide the second that the thief started teasing him, and he blanched, taken by surprise as the King of Thieves came onto him in the most balant, unexpected way. Phil faltered, turning and trying his best to keep Dan in his line of sight, following him and matching his movements as carefully as he was able. Still, he knew the thief was unmatched here; Phil had been stupid to try and follow him into his own world.

It wasn't helping that Phil's head was still kind of spinning from the flirting, either.

"I can't tell whether you're coming onto me, or threatening to kill me, but it seems almost unfair that I'd fall to a man whose name I don't even know," Phil quipped back, trying not to let his shock show. He knew the King of Thieves was only trying to catch Phil off guard, but still. Flirting was something he was accustomed to, sure, but he’d never liked it, always far too aware of its falsehood. So Phil reeled around to distract them both, and stalked towards the thief, watching him jump back and grinning at his almost shocked expression from Phil's calculated but surprising movement.

Oh, this Prince was just precious. Dan was completely taken with his bumbling movements, with the shocked way those blue eyes widened when he realised what Dan was suggesting. Prince Philip was clearly out of his comfort zone here, and Dan used that to his advantage, stalking him with fast, easy movements.

Until the Prince suddenly strode towards him unexpectedly.

Dan scurried back, unbalanced for half-a-second before he regained his control. Momentary surprise could be deadly in this kind of situation, but Dan was too well practised to be afraid. He was toying with the Prince more than anything, knowing he could flee any time he needed to.

And oh, was this Prince fun to play with.

The thief was quick to recover, fumbling for less than a second before his nimble feet righted him once more, but Phil hardly cared, still glowing with pride a little to know that he'd done that. He'd pushed the King of Thieves, nearly thrown him off his feet. Phil had learned how to combat nimble fighters with his own weight and strength, but it was difficult on a rooftop that Phil didn't know the way the thief did.

"Are you asking for my name, Prince?" Dan looked at him from under his lashes, smirking. The Prince was slightly shorter than him, but much burlier, thickset as opposed to Dan's more wily, catlike form. Dan was still taller, though, and he reckoned he could take this Prince if it came to it.

"Unluckily for you, I refuse to give out private information until I've been wined and dined a bit." With that, Dan was moving again, too fast to track, until he was suddenly at Phil's other side and breathing directly into his ear. "Maybe someday, if you're lucky."

And then Dan was backing away again, retreating to the far edge of the rooftop. When the time came, he could jump across to the next building and be on his way - he doubted whether the Prince was agile enough to follow him, but well, he'd underestimated him before. He could be wrong again.

The chase came to a head, then, with the thief poised and ready to bounce away while Phil stood across from him, eyes narrowed and feet flat to the ground, solidly keeping him in place. The thief, however, wasn't acting as if his life was on the line here, not the way Phil had expected, and he was thrown completely out of his comfort zone by the thief lowering his gaze to stare up at Phil from under dark lashes.

Who blessed that man with long lashes? His eyes were heated, a molten brown that seared through Phil. His heart thumped hard in his chest, surprised and caught off guard.

He hardly had a chance to blink, and then, quite suddenly and frighteningly, the thief was behind Phil, his mouth and breath hot against the shell of Phil's ear.

Resolutely ignoring the sudden rough beat of his heart, Phil took a wild swing behind him, but Dan was gone, and before Phil knew it, he was stumbling backwards, having to catch himself on roof tiles as his childhood dagger skid down and clattered to the dark cobblestones below. Phil's body remained crouched low while the King of Thieves bounced about on the balls of his feet across the way from Phil.

The escape route for him was clear, the fight over and dealt with, and Phil knew he was at a loss.

Dan watched with bright eyes as the Prince swung for him helplessly, only serving to let his dagger fall down onto the cobbles below. Dan tutted slightly. "See, mistakes like that will only get you killed. Or lose your best weapons. I bet I could teach you so much more than your precious Royal Guard."

Phil's gaze never once wavered from the thief's, especially now that his final weapon was gone. Largely defenseless and with nothing left to fight with but his fists, Phil could only watch as his foe taunted him from far away, eyes narrowed darkly.

Phil grit his teeth at him, launching upwards so he was on his feet, but the thief didn't flinch again the way Phil wanted him to, and he was willing to bet it was because the King of Thieves had an escape route in mind. He always had an escape route in mind, and there was no doubt in Phil's mind that the thief would be able to move far faster than Phil ever could across these rooftops. It had been hard enough to catch up to him on his horse.

"I would never join you," Phil scoffed, tossing his head at the very idea of a thief teaching Phil anything. Still, the anger boiled hot inside of Phil's chest as he watched this thief, this petty criminal, this outlaw, taunt him and mock him, stance proud. “But I’ll always be willing to chase the “great” King of Thieves," Phil mocked, ignoring Dan's flirting and teasing altogether to answer a question he'd posed earlier. "Remember, I found you once, thief. I'll find you again."

Dan could tell the fight was over. The Prince wasn't going to chase him - not across the rooftops without his sword or his dagger, armourless and defenceless. Dan allowed himself a glimmer of pride, though he didn't let his guard down. After all, the Prince had made him stumble before.

"You're welcome to keep trying, Prince." Dan crossed his arms, cloak billowing behind him, the dagger still in his grip glinting dangerously. "If you dare. Maybe I'll even set up a little trail for you. Make no mistake, though - my comrades you've already caught were small fry. I am the true King around here."

The arrogance in Dan's tone was almost unbearable even to himself, but he wanted to challenge this Prince. He wanted him to keep chasing him. He wanted to see those deep blue eyes studying him again, trying to hold him in place.

Dan wasn't held very easily, though.

"Until next time." And then, just because he could, Dan gave a florid bow - a mockery of the action usually given to one of the Prince's station. The glint of the emerald was just visible inside his cloak, teasingly close but still out of reach.

"Mark my words, thief, I dare you to leave me a trail! I won't rest until I've got you behind bars!" Phil growled, lurching forward again as the thief bowed mockingly, revealing his recently acquired emerald to Phil once more, and then he was gone, leaping across the way to the next rooftop and bounding agilely across until he disappeared into the quickly setting sun.

With a loud, frustrated sigh, Phil turned his gaze up to the sky and cursed himself for letting the King of Thieves escape from his grasp.

He'd come so close. The man wouldn't get away from Phil again.

It took a good few minutes for Phil to get back down from the wall he'd scaled and collect his armor and sword, thankfully unbothered by the citizens of the city. Finding his prized dagger took quite a bit longer, as Phil was weighed down and too bulked up by his armor to move about the floor easily. Once that was done however, and all of Phil's belongings were tucked back upon him once more, he finally set off to get back home.

There was no point in looking for his men or their horses. They wouldn't have been dumb enough to go anywhere but back to the castle, probably having assumed the King of Thieves was long gone and Phil on his way back himself.

They weren't technically wrong. Phil had known before he'd scaled that wall that he had no chance of catching the thief on his own; at least not on the rooftops of the city he knew so well. Phil's thief - and the fact that Phil was beginning to think of the King of Thieves as his at all was not something he was going to dwell on for long, because obviously it was just because capturing the man had become something of a matter of pride for Phil and nothing more - knew the rooftops, small crawl spaces, and the underground of this city far better than Phil himself did.

But not for long.

Phil planned to learn. Phil planned to find any and every excuse possible to become just as good, better even, than the petty criminals his Guard faced, but more than that, Phil wanted to be better than his thief.

The King of Thieves. Well, they'd see just how long he remained the King at all around here.

Dan bounded away across the rooftops with a cackle that he was sure would float back to the Prince. All in all, Dan thought he'd come out pretty well from their first exchange. His dagger was still in his hand, the emerald tucked away inside his cloak, and he hadn't even needed to resort to one of his backup weapons. Meanwhile, the Prince had lost his horse, his sword, his armour, and his dagger, and still had to let Dan get away.

Needless to say, Dan was feeling pretty proud.

He scampered across the rooftops as naturally as anything, spending more time up here than he should probably admit to. Seeing the city from above was always something special, and Dan liked to sit at the edge of the rooftops with his feet hanging over the gutters, watching the people below him go about their daily lives.

Dan’s home was up on the rooftops, too, at least when he was staying in the capital.

He trotted across the giant roof of the library, his footsteps silent, his cloak a shadow flaring behind him, and leaped neatly across to the next building: the Royal Guardhouse.

The same Royal Guardhouse where Prince Philip had an office.

Dan bit back a little laugh as he swung himself under the chimney to the little nook he’d made for himself, proud that he’d never once been caught by said man here, just over his head. Inside were a couple of blankets and various stolen trinkets from his time in the city - it had been a couple of days since he’d returned to his desert cavern. As such, gold glinted from hidden corners as he settled himself in for the night.

The emerald Dan placed carefully beside his pillow, watching it with a thoughtful smile. Getting it had been more difficult than it should have been, but it also led to him actually speaking to Prince Philip for the first time. The Captain of the Royal Guard certainly lived up to his name, but Dan had still beaten him. He’d be gloating over that for a while.

He hummed happily to himself as he cooked up some broth over a small fire, finally safely back in his base for the night. In the morning, he'd get back to his cave with the emerald, and then set about making a trail for the Prince. Because Dan had plans for that Prince. No one challenged Dan and got away with it.

The fact still remained that the Prince had made him stumble. Plus, he'd chased Dan halfway across the city and all the way up onto a rooftop, which showed guts that Dan kind of admired. Dan was itching to see what the Prince could do on safe ground in his comfort zone - just how much of a challenge would fighting him be? Would he prove a match for Dan?

Not that Dan was afraid of losing. He just wanted a challenge, and Prince Philip was the first interesting opponent Dan had met in years. Or possibly ever, if things carried on the way they'd started.

Of course, Dan was only interested in the Prince because of his skill at capturing criminals. It would be interesting to have a challenge for once. That was all. It had nothing to do with the way Prince Philip’s eyes had shone a pretty, stormy blue in the moonlight, or the way he looked like a knight out of a history book in his armour and great broadsword.

No. Dan was just interested in having a challenge.

So Dan set about making a trail for the Prince. He stepped up his thieving activities over the next several weeks, suddenly stealing more frequently and brazenly, targeting some of the richest families in Morellia. The capital city was wracked with fear of this King of Thieves who would show up anywhere at any time, rob the good citizens of their prized possessions, and then disappear into the night again with his black cloak flaring. Dan was loving every minute of it.

Even if he did get cocky. He needed to grab Prince Philip's attention, after all.

#iwritephanthings #phan rp #phanfic #phanfiction #snowbunnylester

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blackkudos · 6 years ago

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Billie Holiday

Eleanora Fagan (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. There were other jazz singers with equal talent, but Holiday had a voice that captured the attention of her audience.

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond, who commended her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick Records in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia Records and Decca Records. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems.

Though she was a successful concert performer throughout the 1950s with two further sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall, Holiday's bad health, coupled with a string of abusive relationships and ongoing drug and alcohol abuse, caused her voice to wither. Her final recordings were met with mixed reaction to her damaged voice but were mild commercial successes. Her final album, Lady in Satin, was released in 1958. Holiday died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959. A posthumous album, Last Recording, was released following her death.

Much of Holiday's material has been rereleased since her death. She is considered a legendary performer with an ongoing influence on American music. She is the recipient of four Grammy awards, all of them posthumous awards for Best Historical Album. Holiday herself was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1973. Lady Sings the Blues, a film about her life, starring Diana Ross, was released in 1972. She is the primary character in the play and later film Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill; the role was originated by Reenie Upchurch in 1986, and played by Audra McDonald on Broadway (she received a Tony Award for her performance) and in the film.

Life and career

1915–25: Childhood

Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, the daughter of Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Holiday, an unmarried teenaged couple. Her father did not live with her mother. Not long after Eleanora was born, Clarence abandoned his family to pursue a career as a jazz banjo player and guitarist. Sarah moved to Philadelphia at age 19, after she was evicted from her parents' home in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, for becoming pregnant. With no support from her parents, she made arrangements with her older, married half-sister, Eva Miller, for Eleanora to stay with her in Baltimore. The child was of African-American ancestry and was also said to have had Irish ancestors through her mother's mixed heritage.

Holiday had a difficult childhood. Her mother often took what were then known as transportation jobs, serving on passenger railroads. Holiday was left to be raised largely by Eva Miller's mother-in-law, Martha Miller, and suffered from her mother's absences and being left in the care of others for much of the first ten years of her life. Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, first published in 1956, is sketchy on details of her early life, but much was confirmed by Stuart Nicholson in his 1995 biography of the singer. Some historians have disputed Holiday's paternity, as a copy of her birth certificate in the Baltimore archives lists the father as a man named Frank DeViese. Other historians consider this an anomaly, probably inserted by a hospital or government worker. DeViese lived in Philadelphia, and Sadie Harris may have known him through her work. Sadie Harris, then known as Sadie Fagan, married Philip Gough, but the marriage ended in two years. Eleonora was left with Martha Miller again while her mother took more transportation jobs. She frequently skipped school, and her truancy resulted in her being brought before the juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was nine years old. She was sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic reform school. She was baptized there on March 19, 1925. After nine months in care, she was "paroled" on October 3, 1925, to her mother, who had opened a restaurant, the East Side Grill, where she and Holiday worked long hours. By the age of 11, Holiday had dropped out of school.

Holiday's mother returned to their home on December 24, 1926, to discover a neighbor, Wilbur Rich, attempting to rape Billie. She successfully fought back, and Rich was arrested. Officials placed Billie in the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody as a state witness in the rape case. Holiday was released in February 1927, nearly twelve. She found a job running errands in a brothel. Around this time, she first heard the records of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. By the end of 1928, Holiday's mother moved to Harlem, New York, and left Holiday again with Martha Miller.

By early 1929, Holiday had joined her mother in Harlem. Their landlady was a sharply dressed woman named Florence Williams, who ran a brothel at 151 West 140th Street. Holiday's mother became a prostitute, and within a matter of days of arriving in New York, Holiday, who was not yet fourteen, also became a prostitute at $5 a client. On May 2, 1929, the house was raided, and Holiday and her mother were sent to prison. After spending some time in a workhouse, her mother was released in July, and Holiday was released in October.

1926–35: Early career

As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", the birth surname of her father, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor sax player Kenneth Hollan. From 1929 to 1931, they were a team, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.

Late in 1932, at the age of 17, Holiday replaced the singer Monette Moore at Covan's, a club on West 132nd Street. The producer John Hammond, who loved Moore's singing and had come to hear her, first heard Holiday there in early 1933. Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut, at age 18, in November 1933, with Benny Goodman. She recorded two songs: "Your Mother's Son-in-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch", the latter being her first hit. "Son-in-Law" sold 300 copies, but "Riffin' the Scotch", released on November 11, sold 5,000 copies. Hammond was impressed by Holiday's singing style and said of her, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius." Hammond compared Holiday favorably to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyric content at her young age.

In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's short Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. In her scene, she sang "Saddest Tale".

1935–38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson

In 1935 Holiday was signed to Brunswick Records by John Hammond to record current pop tunes with Teddy Wilson in the new swing style for the growing jukebox trade. They were given free rein to improvise the material. Holiday's improvisation of melody to fit the emotion was revolutionary. Their first collaboration included "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", and "Miss Brown to You". "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" has been deemed her "claim to fame." Brunswick did not favor the recording session, because producers wanted Holiday to sound more like Cleo Brown. After "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" garnered success, however, the company began considering Holiday an artist in her own right. She began recording under her own name a year later (on the 35-cent Vocalion label), producing a series of extraordinary performances with groups comprising the swing era's finest musicians. The sessions were co-produced by Hammond and Bernie Hanighen.

With their arrangements, Wilson and Holiday took pedestrian pop tunes, such as "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (number 6 Pop) or "Yankee Doodle Went to Town", and turned them into jazz classics. Most of Holiday's recordings with Wilson or under her own name during the 1930s and early 1940s are regarded as important parts of the jazz vocal library. She was then in her twenties.

Another frequent accompanist was the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who had been a boarder at her mother's house in 1934 and with whom Holiday had a special rapport. He said, "I think you can hear that on some of the old records, you know. Some time I'd sit down and listen to 'em myself, and it sound like two of the same voices, if you don't be careful, you know, or the same mind, or something like that." Young nicknamed her "Lady Day", and she dubbed him "Prez".

Hammond spoke about the commercial impact of the Wilson-Holiday sides from 1935 to 1938, calling them a great asset to Brunswick. The record label, according to Hammond, was broke and unable to record many jazz tunes. Wilson, Holiday, Young, and other musicians came into the studio without musical arrangements and improvised as they performed, dispensing with the expense of having written arrangements, so that the records they produced were cheap. Holiday was never given any royalties for her work, instead being paid a flat fee, which saved the company money. Some of the records produced were successful, such as "I Cried for You", which sold 15,000 copies. Hammond said of the record, "15,000 ... was a giant hit for Brunswick in those days. I mean a giant hit. Most records that made money sold around three to four thousand."

1937–38: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw

In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess a few years earlier. Basie had gotten used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do."

Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while Down Beat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.

In November 1938 Holiday was asked to use the service elevator at the Lincoln Hotel, instead of the passenger elevator, because white patrons of the hotels complained. This may have been the last straw for her. She left the band shortly after. Holiday spoke about the incident weeks later, saying, "I was never allowed to visit the bar or the dining room as did other members of the band ... [and] I was made to leave and enter through the kitchen."

There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet in four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".

1939: Commodore recordings and mainstream success

When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore," Holiday said of "Strange Fruit," "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.

Holiday said her father, Clarence Holiday, was denied medical treatment for a fatal lung disorder because of racial prejudice and that singing "Strange Fruit" reminded her of the incident. "It reminds me of how Pop died, but I have to keep singing it, not only because people ask for it, but because twenty years after Pop died the things that killed him are still happening in the South," she wrote in her autobiography.

Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number-one hit for Bing Crosby . She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.

1940–47: Successes

Holiday's mother, Sadie Fagan, nicknamed "The Duchess," opened a restaurant called Mom Holiday's. She used money from her daughter while playing dice with members of the Count Basie band, with whom she toured in the late 1930s. "It kept mom busy and happy and stopped her from worrying and watching over me," Holiday said. Fagan began borrowing large amounts from Holiday to support the restaurant. Holiday obliged but soon fell on hard times herself. "I needed some money one night and I knew Mom was sure to have some," she said. "So I walked in the restaurant like a stockholder and asked. Mom turned me down flat. She wouldn't give me a cent." The two argued, and Holiday shouted angrily, "God bless the child that's got his own," and stormed out. With Arthur Herzog, Jr., a pianist, she wrote a song based on the lyric "God Bless the Child" and added music.

On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day." The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade.

In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."

Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him," Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons with her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings.

In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.

Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than a thousand dollars a week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. When discovered by Joe Glaser, Holiday's manager, Guy was banned from the set.

1947–52: Legal troubles and Carnegie Hall concert

By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the Down Beat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome Magazine popularity poll.

On March 27, 1948, Holiday played Carnegie Hall to a sold-out crowd. There were 2,700 tickets sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. Her popularity was unusual, because she didn't have a current hit record. Her last record to reach the charts was "Lover Man" in 1945. Holiday sang 32 songs at the Carnegie concert by her count, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and her 1930s hit, "Strange Fruit". During the show, someone sent her a box of gardenias. "My old trademark," Holiday said. "I took them out of box and fastened them smack to the side of my head without even looking twice." There was a hatpin in the gardenias and Holiday, unknowingly, stuck it into the side of her head. "I didn't feel anything until the blood started rushing down in my eyes and ears," she said. After the third curtain call, she passed out.

Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco.

Holiday said she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s. She married the trombonist Jimmy Monroe on August 25, 1941. While still married, she became involved with the trumpeter Joe Guy, who was her drug dealer. She divorced Monroe in 1947 and also split with Guy.

Holiday's New York City Cabaret Card was revoked because of her 1947 conviction, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol for the remaining 12 years of her life.

The cabaret system started in 1940 and was intended to prevent people of "bad character" from working on licensed premises. A performer had to renew the license every two years. The system lasted until 1967. Clubs that sold alcohol in New York were among the highest-paying in the country. Club owners knew blacklisted performers had limited work and could offer a smaller salary. This reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue.

Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948.

In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".

1952–59: Lady Sings the Blues

In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, and that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that’s sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane."

To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published byBillboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now," wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following." "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.

The critic Nat Hentoff of Down Beat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:

Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: the singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).

Death

By early 1959 Holiday had cirrhosis of the liver. She stopped drinking on doctor's orders but soon relapsed. By May she had lost 20 pounds (9 kg). Her manager, Joe Glaser, and the jazz critic Leonard Feather, the photojournalist and editor Allan Morrison, and friends unsuccessfully tried to get her to go to a hospital.

On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, under the order of Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939. She was arrested and handcuffed for drug possession as she lay dying, her hospital room was raided, and she was placed under police guard On July 15, she received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church and died two days later, on July 17, 1959, at 3:10 a.m., of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver. In her final years, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750 (a tabloid fee) on her person. Her funeral Mass was on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.

Gilbert Millstein, of the New York Times, who was the announcer at Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall concerts and wrote parts of the sleeve notes for the album The Essential Billie Holiday (see above), described her death in these sleeve notes, dated 1961:

Vocal style and range

Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:

Discography

Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records, and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records; from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death; as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.

Hit records

Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra."

In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.

"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboard's year-end top songs of 1941.

"Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboard's year-end chart.

Studio LPs

Billie Holiday Sings (1952)

An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)

Billie Holiday (1954)

Stay with Me (1955)

Music for Torching (1955)

Velvet Mood (1956)

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

Body and Soul (1957)

Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)

All or Nothing at All (1958)

Lady in Satin (1958)

Last Recording (1959)

Awards and nominations

Filmography

1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet

1947: New Orleans

1935: "Symphony in Black", short (with Duke Ellington)

1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra

Wikipedia

#Billie Holiday #04-07 #07-17

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blackkudos · 8 years ago

Text

Billie Holiday

After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by the producer John Hammond, who commended her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick Records in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson yielded the hit "What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia Records and Decca Records. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, but her reputation deteriorated because of her drug and alcohol problems.

Life and career

1915–25: Childhood

1926–35: Early career

As a young teenager, Holiday started singing in nightclubs in Harlem. She took her professional pseudonym from Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, her probable father. At the outset of her career, she spelled her last name "Halliday", the birth surname of her father, but eventually changed it to "Holiday", his performing name. The young singer teamed up with a neighbor, tenor sax player Kenneth Hollan. From 1929 to 1931, they were a team, performing at clubs such as the Grey Dawn, Pod's and Jerry's on 133rd Street, and the Brooklyn Elks' Club. Benny Goodman recalled hearing Holiday in 1931 at the Bright Spot. As her reputation grew, she played in many clubs, including Mexico's and the Alhambra Bar and Grill, where she met Charles Linton, a vocalist who later worked with Chick Webb. It was also during this period that she connected with her father, who was playing in Fletcher Henderson's band.

In 1935, Holiday had a small role as a woman abused by her lover in Duke Ellington's short Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. In her scene, she sang "Saddest Tale".

1935–38: Recordings with Teddy Wilson

1937–38: Working for Count Basie and Artie Shaw

In late 1937, Holiday had a brief stint as a big-band vocalist with Count Basie. The traveling conditions of the band were often poor; they performed many one-nighters in clubs, moving from city to city with little stability. Holiday chose the songs she sang and had a hand in the arrangements, choosing to portray her developing persona of a woman unlucky in love. Her tunes included "I Must Have That Man", "Travelin' All Alone", "I Can't Get Started", and "Summertime", a hit for Holiday in 1936, originating in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess a few years earlier. Basie had gotten used to Holiday's heavy involvement in the band. He said, "When she rehearsed with the band, it was really just a matter of getting her tunes like she wanted them, because she knew how she wanted to sound and you couldn't tell her what to do."

Holiday found herself in direct competition with the popular singer Ella Fitzgerald. The two later became friends. Fitzgerald was the vocalist for the Chick Webb Band, which was in competition with the Basie band. On January 16, 1938, the same day that Benny Goodman performed his legendary Carnegie Hall jazz concert, the Basie and Webb bands had a battle at the Savoy Ballroom. Webb and Fitzgerald were declared winners by Metronome magazine, while Down Beat magazine pronounced Holiday and Basie the winners. Fitzgerald won a straw poll of the audience by a three-to-one margin.

There are no surviving live recordings of Holiday with Shaw's band. Because she was under contract to a different record label and possibly because of her race, Holiday was able to make only one record with Shaw, "Any Old Time". However, Shaw played clarinet in four songs she recorded in New York on July 10, 1936: "Did I Remember?", "No Regrets", "Summertime" and "Billie's Blues".

1939: Commodore recordings and mainstream success

When Holiday's producers at Columbia found the subject matter too sensitive, Milt Gabler agreed to record it for his Commodore Records label on April 20, 1939. "Strange Fruit" remained in her repertoire for twenty years. She recorded it again for Verve. The Commodore release did not get any airplay, but the controversial song sold well, though Gabler attributed that mostly to the record's other side, "Fine and Mellow", which was a jukebox hit. "The version I recorded for Commodore," Holiday said of "Strange Fruit," "became my biggest-selling record." "Strange Fruit" was the equivalent of a top-twenty hit in the 1930s.

Holiday returned to Commodore in 1944, recording songs she made with Teddy Wilson in the 1930s, including "I Cover the Waterfront", "I'll Get By", and "He's Funny That Way". She also recorded new songs that were popular at the time, including, "My Old Flame", "How Am I to Know?", "I'm Yours", and "I'll Be Seeing You", a number-one hit for Bing Crosby . She also recorded her version of "Embraceable You", which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.

1940–47: Successes

On June 24, 1942, Holiday recorded "Trav'lin Light" with Paul Whiteman for a new label, Capitol Records. Because she was under contract to Columbia, she used the pseudonym "Lady Day." The song reached number 23 on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, then called the Harlem Hit Parade.

In September 1943, Life magazine wrote, "She has the most distinct style of any popular vocalist and is imitated by other vocalists."

Holiday asked Gabler for strings on the recording. Such arrangements were associated with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. "I went on my knees to him," Holiday said. "I didn't want to do it with the ordinary six pieces. I begged Milt and told him I had to have strings behind me." On October 4, 1944, Holiday entered the studio to record "Lover Man", saw the string ensemble and walked out. The musical director, Toots Camarata, said Holiday was overwhelmed with joy. She may also have wanted strings to avoid comparisons with her commercially successful early work with Teddy Wilson and everything produced afterwards. Her 1930s recordings with Wilson used a small jazz combo; recordings for Decca often involved strings.

In 1946, Holiday recorded "Good Morning Heartache". Although the song failed to chart, she sang it in live performances; three live recordings are known.

Holiday's drug addictions were a problem on the set. She earned more than a thousand dollars a week from club ventures but spent most of it on heroin. Her lover, Joe Guy, traveled to Hollywood while Holiday was filming and supplied her with drugs. When discovered by Joe Glaser, Holiday's manager, Guy was banned from the set.

1947–52: Legal troubles and Carnegie Hall concert

By 1947, Holiday was at her commercial peak, having made $250,000 in the three previous years. She was ranked second in the Down Beat poll for 1946 and 1947, her highest ranking in that poll. She was ranked fifth in Billboard's annual college poll of "girl singers" on July 6, 1947 (Jo Stafford was first). In 1946, Holiday won the Metronome Magazine popularity poll.

Holiday was arrested again on January 22, 1949, in her room at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco.

Holiday's New York City Cabaret Card was revoked because of her 1947 conviction, preventing her working anywhere that sold alcohol for the remaining 12 years of her life.

The cabaret system started in 1940 and was intended to prevent people of "bad character" from working on licensed premises. A performer had to renew the license every two years. The system lasted until 1967. Clubs that sold alcohol in New York were among the highest-paying in the country. Club owners knew blacklisted performers had limited work and could offer a smaller salary. This reduced Holiday's earnings. She had not received proper record royalties until she joined Decca, so her main revenue was club concerts. The problem worsened when Holiday's records went out of print in the 1950s. She seldom received royalties in her later years. In 1958, she received a royalty of only $11. Her lawyer in the late 1950s, Earle Warren Zaidins, registered with BMI only two songs she had written or co-written, costing her revenue.

Holiday recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" in 1948.

In 1950, Holiday appeared in the Universal short film Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet, singing "God Bless the Child" and "Now, Baby or Never".

1952–59: Lady Sings the Blues

In his 2015 study, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, John Szwed argued that Lady Sings the Blues is a generally accurate account of her life, and that co-writer Dufty was forced to water down or suppress material by the threat of legal action. According to the reviewer Richard Brody, "Szwed traces the stories of two important relationships that are missing from the book—with Charles Laughton, in the 1930s, and with Tallulah Bankhead, in the late 1940s—and of one relationship that’s sharply diminished in the book, her affair with Orson Welles around the time of Citizen Kane."

To accompany her autobiography, Holiday released the LP Lady Sings the Blues in June 1956. The album featured four new tracks, "Lady Sings the Blues", "Too Marvelous for Words", "Willow Weep for Me", and "I Thought About You", and eight new recordings of her biggest hits to date. The re-recordings included "Trav'lin' Light" "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child". A review of the album was published byBillboard magazine on December 22, 1956, calling it a worthy musical complement to her autobiography. "Holiday is in good voice now," wrote the reviewer, "and these new readings will be much appreciated by her following." "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child" were called classics, and "Good Morning Heartache", another reissued track on the LP, was also noted favorably.

The critic Nat Hentoff of Down Beat magazine, who attended the Carnegie Hall concert, wrote the remainder of the sleeve notes on the 1961 album. He wrote of Holiday's performance:

Holiday was childless, but she had two godchildren: the singer Billie Lorraine Feather (the daughter of Leonard Feather) and Bevan Dufty (the son of William Dufty).

Death

On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York for treatment of liver disease and heart disease. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, under the order of Harry J. Anslinger, had been targeting Holiday since at least 1939. She was arrested and handcuffed for drug possession as she lay dying, her hospital room was raided, and she was placed under police guard On July 15, she received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church and died two days later, on July 17, 1959, at 3:10 a.m., of pulmonary edema and heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver. In her final years, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750 (a tabloid fee) on her person. Her funeral Mass was on July 21, 1959, at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. She was buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.

Vocal style and range

Frank Sinatra was influenced by her performances on 52nd Street as a young man. He told Ebony magazine in 1958 about her impact:

Discography

Billie Holiday recorded extensively for four labels: Columbia Records, which issued her recordings on its subsidiary labels Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records, and OKeh Records, from 1933 through 1942; Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944; Decca Records from 1944 through 1950; briefly for Aladdin Records in 1951; Verve Records and on its earlier imprint Clef Records; from 1952 through 1957, then again for Columbia Records from 1957 to 1958 and finally for MGM Records in 1959. Many of Holiday's recordings appeared on 78-rpm records prior to the long-playing vinyl record era, and only Clef, Verve, and Columbia issued albums during her lifetime that were not compilations of previously released material. Many compilations have been issued since her death; as well as comprehensive box sets and live recordings.

Hit records

Holiday began her recording career on a high note with her first major release, "Riffin' the Scotch", of which 5,000 copies were sold. It was released under the name "Benny Goodman & His Orchestra."

In 1939, Holiday recorded her biggest selling record, "Strange Fruit" for Commodore, charting at number 16 on the available pop charts for the 1930s.

"God Bless the Child", which went on to sell over a million copies, ranked number 3 on Billboard's year-end top songs of 1941.

"Trav'lin' Light" also reached 18 on Billboard's year-end chart.

Studio LPs

Billie Holiday Sings (1952)

An Evening with Billie Holiday (1952)

Billie Holiday (1954)

Stay with Me (1955)

Music for Torching (1955)

Velvet Mood (1956)

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

Body and Soul (1957)

Songs for Distingué Lovers (1957)

All or Nothing at All (1958)

Lady in Satin (1958)

Last Recording (1959)

Awards and nominations

Filmography

1950: 'Sugar Chile' Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet

1947: New Orleans

1935: "Symphony in Black", short (with Duke Ellington)

1933: The Emperor Jones, appeared as an extra

Wikipedia

#Billie Holiday #04-07 #07-17

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